


You Can't Save Her

by SigilBroken



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Ableism, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Three Years Later, author has broken every vow she ever made, book canon to fill gaps, canon divergent from 8x05 & 8x06, emotional child abuse, most of season 8 canon retained, reference to past canon ipv, show canon, standard canon elements present, the show is trash so this is trash, this fic has no audience, this is not fix-it fic, undiagnosed depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 76,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21749680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SigilBroken/pseuds/SigilBroken
Summary: don't read this
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 2694
Kudos: 1528





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [CommaSplice,](/users/CommaSplice/) my beta <3 - all errors are my own.

Jaime knew the news would be bad. The war council gathered around the table, solemn and silent, to hear the maester read the missive. Its tidings came fast and grim: the stormlands invaded, Storm’s End taken, and Gendry Baratheon captured.

Almost as an afterthought, the maester read, “And Tarth has fallen.”

Tarth.

Has fallen.

His mind whirred as the room grew dark. _Not her. No. No—that’s not how...not how one would say she had...that she was..._

Tarth. The island. 

_Her_ island. Tyrion had mentioned it offhand in conversation the year before when Bronn paid his annual visit to the Rock. 

“Well, the Queen in the North is short a general,” his brother had said, “with Royce back in the Vale serving Lord Arryn, Jon ranging far beyond the Wall, and Brienne now the Evenstar—”

Tyrion had been drunk and forgot Jaime was in the room. 

If she was the Evenstar, then her father was dead and she was the Lady of Evenfall. Tarth was hers. 

_Tarth has fallen._ And she is Tarth.

The Evenstar.

But even stars fall.

The thought that she might be...that they might never meet again...

Years ago, after he and Cersei had arrived in Essos—almost as soon as he understood that he would survive his injuries—he’d thought he would eventually see her again. One starry night in Lys, the realization crept up on him like the moonrise over the water.

When Tyrion brought them back to Casterly Rock some months later, Jaime had been certain they would meet once more—could almost feel her in the wind. He’d thought he might see her in King’s Landing when Tyrion hauled them before Bran Stark, or the next year at Riverrun when Edmure Tully had held his great tourney to celebrate the arrival of spring. But she wasn’t at either place. And he never asked. 

_Tarth has fallen._

He sensed the uncomfortable silence around him—forced himself to focus on the maester, focus on the news of invasion, pretend his vision hadn’t dimmed at the mention of her name. 

The maester moved on to the next message.

Tyrion’s gaze slid slowly his way, eyes narrowed, mouth pursed. They sat at opposite ends of Tywin’s dusty old council table, surrounded by Tyrion’s captains and bannermen, but for a moment they were brothers alone.

After the reports had been read, the strategies discussed, the supper of lamb and honeyed capon eaten, the toasts to war drunk, and the bannermen and captains and servants had all gone to their beds, he faced Tyrion across the long expanse of the table.

“We won’t survive this,” Tyrion said, with a tip of his cup.

“No,” he replied as he drained his goblet. “We won’t.”

The undead Targaryen queen had returned to Westeros with hundreds of red priests and priestesses, an army that had already taken the stormlands, and Drogon—along with two other newly acquired dragons. 

_Tarth has fallen._

Tyrion’s goblet thunked to the table. “Do you want me to inquire about... _Tarth?_ Find out if she’s...” His little brother grimaced, rolled his hand, implied a thousand things and also only one thing.

“Dead,” he supplied. Tyrion would find out if she was _dead._ “Do.”

“To what end, though?” Tyrion asked.

“I need to know.”

“You left her,” Tyrion said, his tone almost wistful. “You...you never so much as breathed her name again.”

The memories he kept locked away in the dungeons of his mind began to rattle their cages. He stood; his chair scraped hard along the stone floor; he walked to the door. Before he exited the room he turned back to look at his hawk-eyed little brother. “I wish to know if she’s...”

Dead.

He needed to know if she was dead.

She was supposed to be safe. He had left her safe in Winterfell when he went to meet his fate in King’s Landing. Sansa had no intention of becoming embroiled in the southron wars, so they would be well away from danger _—safe._

But that had been three years ago. 

_Tarth has fallen._

He’d left her because Cersei faced death alone and he couldn’t bear it. A tip in the scales he hadn’t known how to balance. 

So he’d spent one final night in her arms saying goodbye with everything but words and then had stolen away from her like a coward, afraid of how she’d look, of what she’d say. Afraid she would stop him. And when she caught him, he knew he’d been right to be afraid. But he’d done it—he’d left.

He rode south and told himself Cersei was the only thing that mattered. All he had to do was save her, or die with her—and then he could rest. 

To no one’s surprise more than his, he’d done it. Bleeding and broken, he led his sister out of the Red Keep and away from destruction. Hot with fever, green with nausea, he fought and bribed and begged their way to safety.

Cersei had been a near-silent specter at his side. They landed first in Pentos, but found too many Westerosi there for his taste, so they sailed further—for Lys. On ship or land, his sister looked at him with disdain whenever he put food or drink before her. It was for the babe’s sake alone that he’d been able to coax her to eat at all.

After a fortnight in Lys, in the dark before the serving girl came at dawn, Cersei reached for him on their narrow bed, her hands roaming his body. He was almost too weak with fever to manage it, but he took her gently for both their sakes, grateful, thinking she’d decided at last to live. They’d scarce broken their fast that morning before her birthing pains began. She was so much quieter than when she’d labored with their other children that it frightened him, but she found the strength to deliver the babe somehow.

Their daughter was born pink, golden-haired, and squalling. He cleaned her and put her at Cersei’s breast. His sister’s eyes brightened for a moment as she wiped at the babe’s right cheek where she found a wine stain little bigger than her thumb. It didn’t wipe off, of course. 

Cersei lay abed after that, weak and spent, no more life in her than a damp rag.

As the first days wore into weeks he sold his golden hand, counted their remaining coin, then fired the serving girl and hired a wet nurse who came from dawn until dusk instead. He spent half his nights swaddling, crooning, rocking, shushing and the other half begging Cersei to eat, then holding the babe at her breast to do the same. She would clutch the child for a bit, kiss her brow, then simply drift off. By the child’s third month he’d feared Cersei would die. 

Then Tyrion found them and the nightmare ended in a flurry of servants and wet nurses who bundled them all off to a waiting ship and luxurious berths. He slept for half a day in his cabin before he woke to the sound of the babe crying.

He’d found the wet nurse’s quarters across the passageway and when he entered, his daughter quieted at the sound of his voice as he explained to the woman that the child needed to be held upright. When he picked her up to demonstrate, her little arms flailed toward him and as he held her against his shoulder, she burrowed her tiny face into his neck with a sigh as she’d done a hundred times before and went limp in his arms. 

And he felt as though he might weep standing there holding her, his chest constricting in pain at the realization that he loved his daughter, that he’d missed her.

The next morning at breakfast, Tyrion had been appalled to hear they hadn’t named her. 

“You could call her after Mother,” their brother said as he held her.

“Joanna?” Jaime asked. He leaned over to tap her nose, trying to see if the name fit.

Cersei turned away from where she stood looking out the aft windows of the cabin. She seemed stronger and more self-possessed in one of the gowns Tyrion had waiting for her aboard ship. “But Mother was beautiful,” she said matter-of-factly, as though settling an argument.

Tyrion frowned and looked at him. But Jaime was used to the things their sister said about the babe by then.

“Another family name, perhaps?” Jaime asked his brother. “Not Jeyne, there were so many Jeynes.”

“Well,” Tyrion said, running an affectionate finger across the red birthmark on the babe’s cheek, “perhaps a more spirited ancestor. There’s the Red Widow.”

“Rohanne?” Cersei asked disinterestedly. “One of the Tarbecks had that name. Besides, the child’s hair is golden…”

“Rohanne,” Jaime had said. He’d liked the sound of it and the babe had wrinkled her nose at him and gurgled when she heard it.

So they all returned to Westeros, to Casterly Rock. Tyrion was Lord of the Rock and Hand of the King and spent most of his time in King’s Landing doing penance. Cersei regained her strength and perched in Lannisport to play games with cargoes and insurance, intent on finding a source of income to replace the gold which had suddenly and inexplicably run dry throughout the entirety of the Westerlands.

And Jaime... _Jaime..._

Jaime stood on the balcony off his chambers and stared out into the midnight waters of the Sunset Sea. Under his palms, the pale stone of the balustrade made him think not of the warm spring evening in which he stood, but the ice and cold of winter—of the North. The sky was cloudless and most of the lights in the castle were extinguished, so he could see the stars. The brightest winked on the horizon, growing fainter by the moment as the blackest part of night set in.

He made himself say it, whispered it into the night. 

“Tarth has fallen.”


	2. Chapter 2

Harrenhal haunted her as she sat in the dark. That had been her first dungeon, her first true hell. Or so it had seemed at the time. She’d learned more about hells of late. 

They moved her often, every few weeks it seemed—always a suffocating leather hood over her head as they chained her to bounce in agony against the floorboards of a crude old wagon. 

She listened—tried to determine where they took her. Except that she was usually in a stupor of pain by the time they removed her hood in some new castle or keep. 

She thought she was in the crownlands, or perhaps the riverlands. One of the men had mentioned the ironborn and Maidenpool a sennight before. Or perhaps it was a fortnight. Time became a hazy thing. 

They liked to feed her watery gruel once a day, perhaps twice some days—she didn’t know days anymore, only darkness and occasional torchlight. They beat her when she couldn’t keep the food down. She almost welcomed the beatings because at least she wasn’t alone in the damp, black cold with only mice and spiders and ghosts for company.

The ghosts visited often. Her mother and father liked to watch her sadly in the darkness as she shivered and inhaled the aroma of death and rot. She was the last of her family and she’d lost Evenfall—lost Tarth. Her father’s ghost looked at her with despair. He had asked her to wed and carry on their line as he lay weak and desperate on his sickbed. She’d told him she would never marry three days before he drew his last breath. 

Renly visited too, a hard smile on his lips. He’d thought her worthy of his Kingsguard once, but she had let him die and now she was this miserable creature who cowered in the dark. Lady Catelyn watched her with a skeptic’s frown and something like revulsion at what she’d become. 

Then there were the ghosts she hoped weren’t ghosts. Sansa and Arya, mistrust in their eyes. Pod’s sweet, bewildered face. 

And Jaime. Jaime was there. He didn’t look at her. He looked around her as if searching the horizon for someone else.

The scuffle outside her cell door sounded different than the twice-daily change of guard or the once-daily arrival of her meal. She listened close and heard the ringing sound of steel. The door swung open and men came in. One thrust a blinding torch in her face.

“M’lady.”

Odd. They didn’t usually call her that. It was always bitch, or whore, or cunt—

They had their hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet as she teetered on her weakened legs. One of them hammered at the chain that held her right ankle to the wall. Normally they would have placed the awful leather hood over her head by now. Once she would have fought them but...

These _were_ different men. She could just make out their faces as her eyes adjusted to the light.

“We’ll see to the chains at your wrists later,” one of them said.

Then they—

They _helped_ her walk. Out of the cell. She saw the bodies on the ground—the men who beat and starved her were dead.

“My sword,” she rasped from her broken throat as she looked at the body of the leader. Her blade was in his hand, its sheath still strapped about his waist, her ring on his finger. “My seal.”

One of the men bent and took her things from the body and followed her. They brought her stumbling up the stairs, and at the top she recognized the linen sack into which they’d stuffed her possessions after she’d surrendered and Daenerys had ordered her stripped and searched. 

“My armor. My mail,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper as she shook her chained wrists toward the sack. She heard someone pick it up as they took her out into the darkened courtyard. Even moonlight seemed bright to her disused eyes and she squinted against it.

The castle was chaos: men shouting, swords clashing, horses everywhere. She tried to be on her guard, tried to brace herself to fight, but the noise and the movement were nearly too difficult to follow. When she brushed her hair back from her eyes so she could see better, she bashed herself with the chain between her wrists. 

They pulled her toward a stable where a left-handed man in a hood had just thrust his sword through the heart of a roaring knight.

“M’lord.” 

The hooded man turned to face them. 

Her gaze ran over the set of his brow and the line of his jaw like fingers tracing an old battle wound.

Perhaps this was a strange new dungeon dream. A fresh hell.

Jaime.

“Can you ride?” he asked her.

She nodded.

They took her to a horse. Someone draped a warm leather cloak around her shoulders. She stiffened when they pulled a hood over her head, but it was only the hood of the cloak and she could see out and breathe easy.

The spring night air was sweet and sharp with the scent of fresh mown hay as she urged her horse to follow the group through the castle gate and out into the fields. Jaime rode at the lead with his head now bare. It was his cloak they’d put on her shoulders.

Every moment in the saddle was torment as her bones ground against the hard leather, but she ignored the pain. She was free. Jaime was there and, whatever else he was, whoever he was loyal to, she knew he would not keep her prisoner.

They rode for hours, toward the end they rode single file and silent through a wood. When they were hailed by a sentry she knew they’d arrived somewhere. A clearing. A castle on a small rise. An encampment. An army. Red tents everywhere. 

Tyrion Lannister’s familiar short figure stomped toward them as they neared the center of camp. His eyes blazed as Jaime dismounted. “I’ll take your scouting report now, ser. I would know what mission my general kept secret when he took my soldiers behind enemy lines—”

“Twenty men,” Jaime said. “Volunteers.”

Tyrion’s voice grew wry. “Twenty good men, eh?”

She gripped the saddle tight as she swung down from the horse. Her chains clanked as she swayed. 

Tyrion stopped mid-sentence and turned toward her, peered beneath her hood. His face told her all she needed to know about how bad she looked. _“Brienne.”_

“Lord Tyrion,” she said, her voice a pathetic rasp breaking over parched lips. She tried to bow, but only managed a nod.

The Lord of Casterly Rock came to her and took her left hand, clamped it between both of his own before he pressed a kiss to her dirt-smudged knuckles with the fervor of a mummer on a stage. 

She hadn’t seen Tyrion since King’s Landing, not since the day he visited her at the small inn where they stayed outside the Dragon Gate. He had asked Sansa if he might have a private word with _Ser Brienne._ When they were alone, he’d drawn a deep breath and looked at the floor. She had braced herself against the flaking plaster wall, sure he was about to tell her that they’d found his brother’s body in the still smoldering rubble of the Red Keep. 

Instead, Tyrion had said, _”He saved her. My spies have found them in Lys.”_

“Let the blacksmith see to those chains.” Jaime’s voice interrupted the memory. She didn’t look at him, but she nodded.

Two men came with a block and tools and she knelt and tried not to wince as they pounded and pried and broke her wrists free. Her skin was naught but leathery scab beneath the iron and as she stared at it, men took her by the arms and lifted her to her feet. They brought her into a tent. Warm and red, lit with braziers, it was almost too bright inside. She smelled roast game bird.

Women came—servants. They undressed her, scrubbed her, helped her bathe, washed her hair. A maester came too. He denied her the meat she smelled but gave her a cup of broth, then bade her drink three cups of heavily watered tea before she slept. The women plaited her hair and dressed her in a black undertunic that was too wide in the shoulders and grey breeches that were a bit too short. All Jaime’s, she knew—like the tent. 

She had just stood on her wobbly feet to strap her sword back about her waist for the first time in longer than she could remember when Jaime and Tyrion announced themselves and cleared the tent. She held her head high and pulled a deep breath into her lungs. With a sword at her hip she felt more herself, less a dungeon dweller.

“The maester says you must rest,” Tyrion said as she sat at the table in the center of the tent. “But before you do—”

“Queen Sansa?” she asked. This was war, she recognized that much. And Daenerys had three dragons, she’d seen them. So many hours she’d sat in the dark and wondered if Daenerys had gone directly to the north from the stormlands.

She didn’t look at Jaime—didn’t _want_ to look at Jaime—but she heard his heavy sigh. Tyrion sat across from her; the deep lines on his face grew deeper. “Lord Arryn betrayed us, he holds Sansa on behalf of Daenerys.”

“Alive?” she asked as she braced herself.

Tyrion couldn’t keep the pain out of his voice any more than he could keep it off his face. “We assume—I _hope_ —she’s worth more to them alive. The king said she yet lived when last I saw him.”

Sansa had come to her as a ghost. But so had Jaime and he was, beyond doubt, alive.

She chanced a look at him as he poured wine for himself and Tyrion. 

His short hair showed more grey at the temples than she remembered. His beard was closely trimmed and greyer too. Perhaps another wrinkle or two lined his forehead, a new crease at the corner of each eye, but with her eyes playing tricks on her, it was difficult to tell. He glanced up and caught her eye and she dropped her gaze to the table.

“Don’t look like that,” he said. “It’s not all doom. We have two of the dragons.”

That startled her. “How?”

Tyrion snorted. “The king. He took them with his mind.” He tapped his temple and rolled his eyes.

“Warged them,” Jaime said. “That’s what Jon calls it.”

She swallowed and tried to strengthen her voice. “Jon Snow? Is he…?”

“With us,” Tyrion said. “Very much with us. Riding one of the dragons somewhere overhead as we speak, guarding us. The king keeps the other at King’s Landing.”

“Pod?” she asked finally as she braced herself.

“Guarding the king,” Tyrion said. “Alive and well.”

Her shoulders dropped in relief.

“Brienne,” Tyrion continued. “You were with them for so long—”

_“How_ long?” she broke in. 

Tyrion stared at her. “You don’t know?”

She shook her head.

“The better part of a year,” Jaime said softly.

All she could do was stare at him. 

“Did you see Daenerys in that time? Did you hear anything?” Tyrion asked.

“Not since I surrendered to her on Tarth,” she said. “One of the men said the ironborn were bound for Maidenpool not long ago.”

Tyrion nodded. “Yara Greyjoy’s men hold it for Daenerys. Did Daenerys say anything else to you? Did she say why she kept you as a hostage? Did she hope to ransom you to Sansa?”

She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. _Politely put,_ she thought. He meant she was of no value to anyone while Daenerys held Tarth, so why keep her as a prisoner?

“She learned...I have a Targaryen ancestor,” she said.

“So?” Jaime scoffed.

_“Oh.”_ Tyrion leaned forward. “How far back?”

“Five generations,” she said. “Too far, I told her. Pointless.”

“Who did she mean you for?” Tyrion asked.

She looked at him and licked her lips as she tried to answer.

“Jon?” Tyrion prompted.

She nodded. “Or Gendry, if...”

“What?” Jaime’s false hand thumped to the table, a dark grey rippled void at the end of his arm that drew her eye. It was Valyrian steel as she’d heard. 

_Did Cersei have this one made for you as she did the last?_ she wondered in silence.

“Daenerys means to breed dragonriders,” Tyrion said.

She shrugged. “She told her men to move me often. Said...not to dishonor me.”

Tyrion winced. “So they beat and starved you instead.”

“She’d be more pliant half-starved,” Jaime said. He looked her over. She felt his gaze like a lash against her skin

_He will find me less worthy than ever,_ she thought.

She shrugged again.

Tyrion explained how the war progressed, the hollow victories and stalemates. They had lost the Westerlands and Casterly Rock, but while the ironborn held some key ports, Daenerys’s forces couldn’t hold much ground once she flew off on Drogon. It all sounded absurd.

“She needs rest,” Jaime said. He stood and Tyrion shot him a wry look but stood as well. 

Tyrion turned to her with a smile. “We are in need of a hero. You have come at the right time.”

Tears pricked her eyes at that. She looked down at her skeletal hands, her ruined wrists. When the women had bathed her, she’d seen her ribs, her wasted legs. Her strength was gone, they had all but destroyed her.

“Not me,” she whispered, but Tyrion had already gone. 

Jaime lingered by the entrance of the tent. She stood to go.

“No.” He held up his hand to stop her. “You stay here.”

She made herself meet his eyes. They were soft, full of sympathy. No, she didn’t want this— _this_ was what she’d always dreaded to find if she ever looked in his eyes again—not contempt, not repudiation, but kindness, decency, _pity—_

If she had the strength, she would have laughed. Nearly four years since she’d seen him last and she was more pathetic and humiliated than she had been then—when she was a shell of a woman weeping and begging in the snow.

“Thank you,” she made herself say, a scratch of sound from her throat. She lowered her head in deference, but it galled her to owe him anything. He had rescued her, deliberately, if she read Tyrion’s anger right. Perhaps because he felt guilt. Perhaps because he was just Jaime caught up in one of his unpredictable bouts of goodness.

He must have seen how much she hated to thank him. His chuckle had a cruel flavor. “Don’t. Don’t thank me.”

The skin on her brow furrowed painfully. “Yet I do, ser.”

“You knew my name once,” he said, with that sardonic drop of his chin she wished she didn’t know so well. The sharp edge of his voice pierced her, like a knife slowly pushed into her breast. 

She drew her head high, set her jaw. Let him mock her. “I know it still.”

He nodded toward the linen sack full of her plate and mail. “You wore blue armor once.”

She steeled herself. She liked the new plate she’d commissioned. It was plain and honest. “I wear grey now.”

His face twitched, or perhaps it was the torchlight flickering over his cheek. His gaze fell to her hip. 

“You carried Valyrian steel once,” he said, softer now.

Her fingers flitted to the black leather-wrapped hilt of her father’s sword, to the giant sapphire set in the pommel. Her throat was full of sand. She fought to keep the anger out of her voice. “No longer.”

He narrowed his eyes but nodded. “Rest.”

She turned away and heard him leave the tent. The women returned and helped her bed down on a low cot in the corner. They piled furs on her and extinguished the lights but the tent was not completely dark. The glow from campfires and torches outside the red canvas walls was almost beautiful compared to the months of dungeon darkness. Jaime was gone, but his scent was all around her as she burrowed into his bedding and let the tears fall at last.

She shouldn’t have shown her anger. Too much anger, too much _anything_ and he would think she cared for him still. He would think her a sorry fool, pining for him. The thought of the pity she’d seen in his eyes was more than she could bear.

She’d had all she could stand of pity from everyone else years before. After the fall of King’s Landing, Ser Davos had written to Sansa and included a few lines at the end of the page. 

“This last bit, I believe, is for you,” Sansa had said, as she’d handed over the parchment.

It read, _Lord Tyrion met with Ser Jaime the night before the battle and released him to rescue Queen Cersei. After the battle, Euron Greyjoy was found stabbed and raving. Before he died of his wounds, Greyjoy claimed he had dealt Ser Jaime a mortal blow. Queen Cersei and Ser Jaime are believed to have died in the collapse of the Red Keep._

When Tyrion was freed after the Great Council, she’d sought him out in the Hand’s chambers. 

His eyes had been so full of pity she hadn’t even had to ask, he’d simply volunteered: “Yes, I saw him. He was so intent on saving her, I thought perhaps he could do it. I arranged for a boat to be left for them, but Ser Davos found it just where it had been left. And Euron Greyjoy—”

“I heard,” she had managed. She’d had weeks to accustom herself by that point, but had to fight a lump in her throat just the same. 

“He wasn’t himself,” Tyrion had said. Then he’d risen and gone to look out the window at the ruin of the Red Keep.

She had waited then, like a fool, hoping he had left her some final word. A message. Even just a farewell. Something to ease the pain. Surely if Jaime had uttered the words, _“Tell Brienne...”_ his brother would remember and tell her now. But there was nothing.

Of course, there was nothing.

She’d stood then to go, but the sound of her movement had startled Tyrion into turning her way. 

“I am,” she began, but then she’d had to pause, to wrestle down the knot that threatened to choke her, _“sorry_...for your loss.”

_“Brienne,”_ Tyrion had said, as he searched her face. Then the pity came into his eyes again and _—gods—_ the pity was worse than anything. It made her wretched. It made her angry. “I am sorry for yours. He...he found a moment of happiness in Winterfell, with you, he—”

“Never so much as breathed my name again,” she cut in. The tears still threatened, but the anger gave her voice back, and the way Tyrion’s gaze dropped to the floor was a truth she needed to see. 

“He was my brother,” Tyrion said, “and I loved him dearly. I know you saw what I did, the honor and goodness _—the nobility—_ in him.” Then he’d taken her left hand in his own and kissed it, looked up at her with tears in his eyes. “But he wasn’t fit to kiss your boots, Ser Brienne.”

That didn’t help. She’d pulled away and left, still stuck in the quagmire of her feelings for Jaime. She mourned him like a widow and hated him like an enemy. He was light and darkness to her—the best moments of her life and the worst. It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t loved her, and she’d never held any delusions that he’d ceased to love Cersei, but for a time he’d allowed her to believe he’d chosen her—had given her reason to hope—and then he’d slunk off and left her in the night. And died.

She couldn’t seem to forgive him for that, especially not once she knew he was alive. That and the unrelenting kindness from everyone who saw her pathetic grief for a man who’d utterly rejected her and sadly shook their heads at her pitiable folly.

_Poor Brienne. Always wants men who don’t want her back._

Oh, he had wanted her for a moment, at the edge of the world, when the Long Night had made all of life seem strange and fleeting.

There, in Winterfell, Jaime had tried the feel of her, like a warrior testing the weight of a new sword in his hand. He’d put her in his scabbard and kept her at his hip for a few weeks but, in the end, he had set her aside.


	3. Chapter 3

“You miserable fool,” Tyrion said. “What were you thinking?”

Perhaps he should have taken his bedroll to one his captains’ tents. Tyrion seemed in no mood for sleep.

“I was thinking I could get her out. Which I did.”

“Yes, well, your little plan could have failed a thousand ways,” Tyrion said as he glared down from his cot.

“It didn’t.” Jaime rolled over to face the tent wall so his brother couldn’t see his face in the dim light from outside. “You saw her. She would have been dead within a fortnight. Her eyes...”

He was certain of that much. She was painfully thin, and while she had some strength left, her eyes...he’d never seen her like that, not with Locke, not at Harrenhal, not when they faced the dead, not even in the courtyard when...when...not even _then._ The determination that drove her had simply vanished.

“She’s made of sterner stuff than you think,” Tyrion said.

Jaime snorted. “Oh. You know her better than I do, do you?”

Tyrion laughed, low and mocking. “I know her better than you think I do. We were together for months after the destruction of King’s Landing.”

Jaime heard she sat on the Great Council. “The Council—”

“Not just the Council,” Tyrion cut in. “She thought you were dead. We all did.”

He tried to remember what Tyrion had said when he’d found them in Lys. Something about Euron telling everyone he’d slain the Kingslayer.

Tyrion continued. “She was the only other person in the world who mourned you. It was just the two of us day after day, breathing soot, swallowing ash, watching them pick through the remains of the Red Keep, certain that at any moment one of the workmen would bring us a body with a melted golden hand.”

He hadn’t thought she would grieve him. In those days he hadn’t thought much about anything.

If she’d grieved for him once, she hated him now. The only sparks of life he’d seen in her eyes had been pain at the news of Sansa’s capture and barely leashed rage when he’d tried to antagonize her to see if she had any fight left. But better rage than nothing.

“If that’s true, then you understand why I had to go after her,” Jaime said. Only Tyrion could be near tears at the sight of the woman one moment and then curse him for a fool for freeing her the next. “I owe her a debt.”

“You owe _me_ a debt,” Tyrion snapped. “And I can’t do this without you. Men won’t follow me the way they do you. You aren’t afraid, so they forget they’re afraid. I need you. We all need you. You can’t throw your life away—”

Jaime’d had enough. He sat up. “My life is all that truly remains my own—I’ll do whatever I like with it.”

Tyrion was relentless. “What about Ro?”

Ah. Rohanne had been the difficult part. 

He’d bundled his daughter up that afternoon and bid her nurse and two guards gather her things from his tent and follow him to the castle just beyond camp. After he’d seen her lodged in a corner of the bedchamber the lord and lady had given Cersei, she’d realized he was leaving her and promptly sat on his foot and wrapped her arms and legs so tight around his calf it had taken both the guards to help him pry her off. He’d ridden out of camp afraid that was the last memory she’d ever have of him—abandoning her. 

No matter what he did, he was always forsaking someone or other.

“You will take care of Ro,” he said.

“I have to live to do that, big brother. Your faith in my ability to survive this hellish war without you is touching and misguided,” Tyrion said. “I’m the Hand of the King. Surely you can see why I can’t have my general disobey me and leave me to blunder through camp like a jester’s imitation of myself asking where my brother could have got off to with twenty of my best soldiers without so much as a _by-your-leave._ You’ll cause insurrection.”

Jaime lay back down and turned away from Tyrion again, as a satisfied grin settled on his face. He’d already caused insurrection. This was the third time he’d gone out to dig through some dungeon looking for her, but Tyrion had never caught the scent of his first two attempts. Bronn’s spies had traced Brienne’s whereabouts for months and sent word of every new whisper to him. Jon helped him scout the castle from above and had hovered silently in the night ready to swoop in if aught had gone amiss. 

If Rohanne hadn’t shouted down at Tyrion from atop the walls of the castle, waving her little sword and demanding her lord uncle have her things and her person returned to the camp, his brother wouldn’t have known a thing until he’d arrived back with Brienne safe and sound.

_Safe and sound?_

His smile died at the memory of her tall, gaunt figure dressed in rags, her half-dead blue eyes peeking out through a greasy tangle of blonde hair. He’d wanted to do murder at the sight of her, to revive the men he’d just killed and kill them again. 

She had always been strong, ferocious, as if she kept a storm leashed behind her strict honor and careful decorum. He’d seen the storm, touched it, felt it—in the long, lean lines of her legs and the smooth muscle of her back, the lithe grip of her—

_No._

No. There was nothing safe in those memories.

He forced his mind elsewhere and instead fell asleep to the memory of her brutal, deft attack on the three Stark men in the riverlands years before—when her strength left him speechless.

The next morning he woke feeling better than a man of four and a half decades ought. He could feel her there in the camp when he opened his eyes—he’d forgotten how it felt when they breathed the same air. 

He caught the maester after the man had looked in on her and been admonished that she must have a day to rest. She was to be given a bit of food, a bit of watered wine. “Rest,” the maester said. “She needs sleep, my lord.”

He had no excuse to linger beside the tent while she slept.

Instead he went to the castle to retrieve his outraged daughter. Cersei sat at the high table in the castle’s modest great hall, bathed in the rays of the morning sun through the large leaded glass windows. She had somehow commandeered the lord’s seat and sat with two of their captives—red priestesses—on either side of her. He thought she’d had enough of religious sorts after her battles with the Faith. _But when have I ever understood how her mind works?_

Sharp-eyed, her gaze followed his approach, her face turned half in profile so she could watch him from the corner of her eye the way she liked to do. Her hair hung loose past her shoulders and was a thousand shades of gold in the sunlight, with none of the grey that seemed to daily claim more of his head.

She was always flanked by the priestesses these days, the three of them quietly watching every room or camp they were in, occasionally whispering things that made the others smirk.

“Brother,” Cersei greeted him. The priestesses smiled at him in that strange way that didn’t involve their mouths. Tyrion had ordered their rubies taken, but let them roam the camp so long as they stayed with their guards. 

“I give you good morning, ladies,” he said. Best to keep this polite and brief.

“We hear there was a great flurry of... _activity_ in your tent last night,” Cersei said.

The priestesses both breathed out hard through their noses and exchanged amused glances with Cersei.

He’d known this would come.

“Brienne of Tarth was rescued last night.” He wasn’t interested in subterfuge, and she clearly already knew everything.

Cersei’s brow twitched briefly, but she channeled her reaction into a narrow-eyed stare that he returned. 

“How fortunate,” she said. “She must sup here with us tonight. The camp is no place for a...” She looked him over from head to toe and cocked her head slightly to the side. “...lady.”

He stared back at her, but before he could reply he was attacked.

“Father!” Rohanne yanked on Widow’s Wail, hooked her hands in his belt, and tried to topple him.

He looked down at her golden curls barely contained in the plaits her nurse had attempted. Her wide green eyes pleaded with him not to leave her again. 

“Say farewell to your lady mother,” he said.

She stopped what she was doing and turned to drop a curtsy of sorts to Cersei. “Farewell, Mother.”

“Your manners will be much improved when next I see you,” Cersei said. 

“Yes,” Rohanne said. She grabbed hold of his leg and mashed her right cheek hard into his thigh. 

He patted the top of her head. She’d begun to hide her face a few months before and he hated it. 

“We must go,” he said with a nod to Cersei. He grabbed Rohanne, threw her over his shoulder, and told her nurse to have her things brought as he left the hall. 

Ro kicked her legs once they were out of her mother’s sight. “I want to see. I want to see!”

He let her ride on his shoulders as they walked back to camp through the dewy pasture grass.

“Did you fight a battle?” she asked him as her chubby little hands gripped his forehead tight.

“A skirmish.”

“Did you kill bad men?” she asked, too eager as always.

“A good warrior wins without—”

_“Bloodshed,”_ she said, disappointed. “Did you bloodshed?”

He sighed. “A bit.”

He could hear her smile, his bloodthirsty little monster, raised in the midst of a war host. “How many bloods?”

“A true knight never counts his kills.”

“Lord Bronn counts,” she said.

He groaned. She was nearly four and she heard everything. _Everything._ “We don’t count kills, Ro.”

She rested her chin hard on the top of his head. _“I_ will count.”

“Must you disagree with everything I say?”

He felt her little chin grind into his scalp as she shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “A lady with a blemished face must not be disagreeable.”

Not her words, he knew—she didn’t even know what blemish meant. The phrasing was new, but the sound was always the same. He’d been waging this war since she was born.

“Hmmm. What would Lann the Clever say to that?” he asked.

Her fingers tapped an uncertain rhythm on his forehead. “Ummm. What?”

“Would he say clever ladies may do as they will?” he prompted.

“Yes,” she said, patting his head to humor him. Then she spotted Tyrion and squealed. _“Lord Uncle!”_

He left Rohanne with Tyrion to break her fast and went about his day. His squires sought him out with messages and his captains brought him reports. The tent showed no signs of life.

Finally, long past midday, servants carried heated water into the tent. She had bathed the night before, but he remembered the filth that clung to him after he was released from Robb Stark’s cage. One bath may not be enough. Fifty may not be enough. 

Jon Snow arrived, a dark spot growing larger against the early evening sun. The reek of warm dragon mingled with restless horse and unwashed multitude, the stench inescapable in the late spring heat.

Tyrion acted like it was the most natural thing to take supper in his tent. Only it wasn’t his tent now; it was Brienne’s tent. They walked in as the sun set in the west to see her squinting against the slight sunlight from the open tent flap.

She wore her hair plaited and pinned at the back of her neck. The long hair was yet another thing she’d changed about herself since he knew her. They had dressed her in his clothes, as he’d bid them. One of his grey tunics hung far too loose on her, his breeches sagged at her knees, his black boots gaped against her calves. Still, she looked refreshed, better—rested. Less like a wight, though her skin was bluish pale. 

“Brienne,” Jon said, brushing past him. 

Jon clapped her on the upper arm like a long lost comrade. Tyrion had kissed her hand the night before. They could approach her, touch her, with the ease of old friends.

Brienne looked up and met his gaze for the briefest moment—guarded, wary. There was no ease between the two of them. After Harrenhal, she used to look at him, stare at him, as if she knew there was something good inside him, something important. 

Despite all the years, and battlefields, and duty—despite Sansa and Cersei between them—she had looked at him as if she trusted him. He’d grown used to it, accepted it, as part of the unnameable thing that existed between them. Then in Winterfell, it had expanded, blossomed, turned tender. 

And now it was gone—not broken, or splintered, just finished. 

He should have expected nothing less. He’d meant for her to hate him. Yet every time he looked her way some part of him hoped to find a glimmer of that old look still there. 

The four of them supped as Jon shared his latest observations from the sky. Brienne did not partake of the lamb with them, instead she was presented with a bowl of thin stew and a soft piece of bread. The maester’s orders, he knew. He caught her longing glance at Tyrion’s plate across the table from her, but knew she would eat only what she was given. 

She’d always known how to deny herself what she truly wanted. It was the first thing he understood about her, when he realized she loved Renly. He’d seen it again in the dungeon at Harrenhal when she’d resigned herself to death for the sake of Sansa and Arya, as though she had no hopes or dreams of her own. But she did have hopes and dreams, he’d heard them, had plucked them one by one from her somber, stubborn lips.

“What word have you of her grace, my lord?” she asked Jon when he finished relaying what he had seen on his scouting run. Her voice still hadn’t recovered, but it sounded better than it had the night before.

Jon shrugged and sighed. “Held in the Eyrie, I think. I can get to it, but to get her out, without...”

“The risk is too great,” Tyrion said. He hung his head, the weight of Sansa’s situation seemed to grow heavier on him by the day. “Jon could accidentally kill her before he could reach her. You know how it is with dragons, the destruction is not...precise. ”

The simple truth of their war. Daenerys, Bran, and Jon each had a dragon at their command but none were willing to engage again in the wanton destruction that had leveled King’s Landing. Instead they bluffed and postured and let their armies grapple in the field. 

It was only a matter of time, Jaime knew. One of them would break and unleash a new inferno and then they would all burn. Every last one of them.

“Until we can secure Sansa, I could use you with the northern forces at Riverrun,” Jon told her. “They have only Lord Edmure to lead them when I am not there and—”

“They can’t stand him,” Tyrion finished, his mouth full of buttered turnips.

Brienne nodded. “When do we leave?”

Jaime paused with his goblet mid-air.

“Should probably wait until you’re on solid food again,” Jon said with a near chuckle as he nodded toward her stew.

She almost smiled and Tyrion grinned. 

“Did you see anything of Gendry?” Jon asked her. “Were you ever held in the same place?”

Brienne shook her head. “Daenerys mentioned him when I surrendered, but she had not captured him yet.”

“You spoke to her,” Jon said as he cut a piece of lamb with far too much precision. The man fairly vibrated with curiosity. Jaime wanted to tell Brienne to put the poor fool out of his misery.

Brienne’s gaze darted toward Jon. “She was much the same. More subdued, perhaps.”

Tyrion took a deep breath. “Tell him what she said.”

She shifted in discomfort and half rolled her eyes. “She learned Lord Gendry has Targaryen ancestors. And that I do.”

Jon chewed his meat slowly, then swallowed while he stared at the ground. “Oh?”

“She landed in Westeros intent to arrange some marriages,” Tyrion said.

_This again._ Jaime sat back and crossed his arms.

“Oh,” Jon said, disinterested. Then he raised his head, looked sharp at Brienne. _“Oh?”_

Brienne shrugged, shook her head in exasperation.

“Dragonriders,” Tyrion said as he appraised Jon.

_Why is anyone entertaining this absurdity?_

Jon tipped his goblet toward Brienne. “Well, my lady, we could have some spectacularly average height children.”

Brienne snorted and Tyrion laughed as Jon kept up his smirk for a moment or two before his face turned pensive again as he sipped his wine.

Jaime tapped the table. “Why doesn’t she just have her own children? Breed her own bloody dragonriders.”

“There were rumors she couldn’t,” Tyrion said with a questioning glance toward Jon.

Snow looked uncomfortable. Jaime leaned toward him and said, “Your loyalty is touching.”

That earned him a glare, but no answer.

As the meal tapered to an end, Jon begged off claiming fatigue. Tyrion rose to follow and signaled Jaime to do the same, but Jaime sank deeper into his chair and ignored his brother.

“If you need anything at all, my lady, you need only send word,” Tyrion said with a warning look at Jaime.

They were alone.

Silence fell heavy between them and he worried she would ask him to leave.

He stood and wandered about the tent in search of a reason to stay. Her sword hung from one of the tent poles. He took it and examined it as he sat down across the table from her again. “Where is your blade, Brienne?”

She leaned her elbows on the table and crossed her arms. “You’re holding it.”

Exasperated, he looked up at her. She raised one brow in challenge.

He tried a different tack. The hilt was dark grey steel, the grip wrapped in black leather. Set in the pommel was the largest blue sapphire he’d ever seen. Someone had tried to pry the gem out—probably one of her captors. He held it up to the lighted brazier beside him so he could see firelight through the sapphire. The fine threads of filigree metalwork that held the gem in place had been masterfully woven to show a castle on the crest of a cliff.

“Tarth?” he asked as he looked up. She had been watching him closely, but dropped her eyes to ponder the table again.

“Evenfall,” she whispered.

“Your father’s sword?”

She nodded but didn’t look up. “It was.”

“He must have been proud to know you carried it.”

Her eyes closed and stayed that way for a moment, then she blinked away whatever memory brought on the sad twitch of her jaw as her fingers fiddled with a signet ring that hung loose on her shrunken finger. “Proud? I cannot say. He was as baffled by me as everyone else.”

“Were you with him when he passed?”

More nodding. “Yes. I made it home in time.”

He’d never been sure how things stood between her and Selwyn Tarth. He knew she loved the man, but she was reluctant to say much. Talking about her father made her sad, and he didn’t want her sad. Better to have her angry. “Where is Oathkeeper?” 

Eyes narrowed, she looked up at him.

“The bottom of the Straits of Tarth?” he asked.

She scoffed. “You think I would toss Valyrian steel overboard just because...”

Her gaze dropped to the table again. 

“Did you?”

“It’s at Evenfall,” she said. “Hidden. Where no invader will find it.”

She was thinking about her lost home then, he could tell, worry for her people writ plain across her face.

Her hand snaked out across the table to snag the hilt of the sword. He saw her right wrist peek out from below her sleeve, the marks on it dark red and cruel. 

“Chains,” he said with a nod toward her wounds as she pulled the sword to rest before her. “Awful things.”

Her fingers played against her wrists for a moment before she stopped herself. “I am sorry I made you wear them.”

He almost laughed. “That’s not— I wasn’t...It was sympathy, Brienne.”

“I thought about it,” she said. “Remembered those days. More than once in the dark.”

“Robb Stark put those chains on me, not you. Besides, you saved me from chains, or worse, in Winterfell.”

She crossed her arms tight over her chest and looked off to the side. They were silent again. Past time for him to go.

Instead, he said, “I have a child.”

_Of all the stupid ways to fill the silence._

Her brows drew together in confusion, her lips pursed. Her eyes darted around the interior of the tent, from the red canvas ceiling to the cot to the table. 

“I know,” she said at last when she let her gaze settle on her father’s sword and reached out to touch it.

“Oh.”

“You might have...” She shrugged, gaze trained on the sword. “You might have told me.”

Yes, he might have.

“When might I have done that?” he asked.

“The moment you arrived in Winterfell,” she said. Brittle and high, her tone said she’d thought about this before.

He rested his elbow on the table and smoothed his hand across his mouth. “It wasn’t real to me. _She_ wasn’t real to me until I held her in my arms.”

Confusion rippled over her features again. “So, that’s not...” Her fingers flipped the loose ring around and around her finger as she shook her head, bit her lip.

Did she think that was why he went back to King’s Landing? Had she tried to ascribe such noble intentions to him? 

The truth was he hadn’t thought about the child growing inside his sister. He hadn’t thought about anything but Cersei facing death alone, and he’d been unable to abandon her to her fate.

He sighed. “Would you have touched me if you knew about the child?”

Eyes closed, she shrank away from him and leaned against the back of the chair.

“No,” she breathed. “I thought you were... _unencumbered.”_

He’d never been that. Though he had deluded himself he was when he rode to Winterfell, and for a few weeks after.

“I wanted to be.”

“You should have been honest.”

“I wasn’t _dishonest,_ Brienne.”

“You didn’t tell the truth, either. You said you would—” She cut herself off and cringed. “It matters not.”

Jaime kneaded his temple. He had said things—had said he would _do_ things. And he _had_ intended to do them.

“Brienne, I always meant to ask your forgiveness. I loved her—”

She looked up at him and exhaled hard—almost a laugh.

“I don’t blame you for loving her. I’ve seen her. I understand. She’s the sort of woman men...” She stopped herself there, with a wry twist of her lips. He opened his mouth to speak, but she continued. “It was the lie—”

“I never _lied._ I never said I didn’t love her then, I—”

“No. _No,”_ she cut him off. “I knew you loved her. I wasn’t blind or stupid.” Her chin dropped and she looked toward the entrance of the tent. In the firelight from the brazier her skin seemed to glow. “It wasn’t that you loved her, but that you pretended to leave her. That was the lie. Riding to Winterfell was the lie.”

His hand fell away from his face.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Anger flicked through his veins. “There was no lie in that.”

“You should never have ridden north.”

“That wasn’t for you to decide,” he snapped. “I wronged you, I admit it, but being there? That wasn’t wrong. Set the same path before me, and I would turn my horse north and do it again. What choice did I have?”

She didn’t like his anger, he could see it in the set of her jaw—but he didn’t care. 

“You weren’t needed,” she said.

“It’s naught to me if I was _needed,”_ he said. “Winterfell was the only place I could be.”

She glared at him. He glared back. Damn her and the righteous look in her eyes—she didn’t understand.

“Why do you linger here, ser? What do you want from me?” 

“To know that you’re well,” he said. 

She sat up tall and straight, and some of the strength her voice lacked returned as she hardened her eyes, closed her fingers into a fist that held her ring in place. “I am well. Better than I have been for nearly a year. You saved me and I thank you for that kindness. We can part now with nothing between us.”

He blinked. _Nothing between us._ His skin was alive, hot with fever. He stood. “I already told you not to thank me.”

“Thank you, _ser,”_ she spat. She sat there, starved, half dead, nothing but pride and rage holding her upright, and he didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her or curse her. Damn her.

He walked to the entrance of the tent, then turned and bowed, deep and formal. “Farewell, my lady.”

“Learned to say farewell, have you?” She was on her feet, held her sword by its sheath in her hand, almost a threat.

He growled out a laugh and gestured between them. “You think this is _nothing?”_

“Get out,” she snarled.

He went.

Earlier he’d ordered Cersei’s tent erected and his things moved into it. He found it mostly dark when he went inside, but caught Rohanne peeping her head out from around the wooden screen in the corner that she and her nurse slept behind.

“Sleep,” he whispered. He went to his desk and took one of the leather laces he used to bind his hand in place and slipped it into the inner pocket of his gambeson.

Rohanne didn’t move. She had her little wooden sword in hand and pointed it at him. “Stories,” she demanded.

_“Sleep,”_ he ordered, not caring if he woke the nurse.

“Stories!”

He wiped his hand down his face. “Tomorrow.”

Her little nose scrunched as she pouted. “Ten stories tomorrow.”

“Three.”

She looked down at her hands and he realized she was counting her fingers. “Three is only this many,” she said at last, holding up four fingers.

“Five, then. Now sleep.”

The wooden sword made a brief swing his way once more, but she ducked back toward her cot.

She would require silence to lull her to sleep, but he carried tempests inside. He left the tent thinking he would go have a drink with whichever of his captains were still gathered around their fires, but Tyrion leaned out the entrance of his own tent and beckoned him in.

Jaime had no sooner crossed the threshold than his brother threw a boot at him.

He ducked. _“What was that for?”_

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tyrion’s glare was wild.

Brienne. His little brother must have listened outside the tent.

“None of your business.”

_“Ah,”_ Tyrion barked and pointed a finger at him. “Ah, there’s where you’re wrong. You make a hash of this and it becomes very much _my_ business. Ask me how I know.”

“I know everyone thought I was dead and she mourned me, but—”

“You think that’s all it was? She vouched for you before the realm in Winterfell, pledged her faith in your honor.”

Jaime swallowed. He tried not to think about that for a hundred reasons. “I know.”

“She was the only hero of the Long Night left, you know,” Tyrion said, “the only one of the leaders not... _tainted_ by everything that came after in King’s Landing. Because of that and her damnably stout honor, I begged her to be lord commander of Bran’s kingsguard. Know what she told me? She said, ‘I vouched for your brother and I believe he did the honorable thing when he returned to guard your sister. You cannot have a lord commander who won’t renounce someone the realm believes to be a traitor.’”

_The honorable thing?_

“Oh.” 

“And now you won’t leave her alone. Don’t think I didn’t notice how often you walked past that tent today. It wasn’t enough to rescue her, you have to try to win her forgiveness.”

“I’m not trying—”

Tyrion swiped his wine goblet from the table and drank. “You are! If it’s not her forgiveness, then it’s something else you’re trying to win, and that would be worse. Surely, sweet brother, you see how that would be even _worse.”_

Jaime stood tall and stared down at his brother, tired of the lecture. “There were things I needed to say to her. You wouldn’t understand.”

_“I_ wouldn’t understand? If I wasn’t such a hopeless halfwit, I would have thought to warn her back in Winterfell,” Tyrion said with a sip of wine, “told her the lesson I learnt when I was small—you _always_ choose Cersei.”

Tyrion looked—

Tyrion looked near tears. Sounded it too.

Jaime swallowed. “It wasn’t about choice. I was needed in King’s Landing. I couldn’t let Cersei face them alone, die alone.”

Tyrion’s laugh was bitter.

“You wanted to save her too,” Jaime said. He heard the weak protest in his own voice. “You’re the one who told me how to do it.”

“Leave Brienne alone,” Tyrion said. “You scorned her once. It would be monstrous to lead her down that path again.”

Jaime winced. _“Scorned?”_

Tyrion stared at him. “What else would you call it?”

“Not that.”

“You left her for another woman, Jaime.”

“Cersei was in danger—”

Tyrion ignored him. “I’d have wagered on her in a duel against any man in Westeros, but against Cersei?”

“Guard your tongue, little brother.”

“Well, that was a fight she was always destined to lose,” Tyrion continued unabated, tipping his goblet high to drink the last drop as his voice dropped low and cruel. “She’s no beauty, and she’s far too honorable to send an assassin after you for leaving her—more’s the pity. She might even have loved you, and the gods know you couldn’t have stood that for long. What chance did she have?”

Jaime gritted his teeth, felt his nostrils flare. Tyrion always knew where to stick the knife.

“You needn’t worry,” he said as he threw open the tent flap. “She hates me now. I’m not entirely sure she even remembers my name.”

The camp seemed full of movement for the late hour and he walked far from the more crowded campfires and sat on a stump beside a fire near the horses. The poor beasts huffed nervously at the scent of dragon in the air.

“Did you draw watch duty?”

Jaime looked up to see Jon approach. The man’s hair had more grey in it every time Jaime saw him. A few more months of war with Sansa in captivity and he’d finally look the part of a Targaryen.

“Thought you were too tired for company,” he said.

“Too many ghosts in that tent.” Jon grimaced and sat beside him. “And one who nearly was. You got her out just in time. By the look of her she only had a few days left.”

“You should have seen her last night,” Jaime said. He couldn’t think about how near a thing it had been, all those months of searching in vain with a lead weight in his stomach that grew heavier with each failure.

Jon exhaled hard. “If they’ve done that to Sansa—”

“Brienne fought them.” Jaime shook his head. “They starved her into submission. Sansa will be a model prisoner.”

That only made Jon scowl. “Even Sansa can’t play that part forever. We need to get her out.”

They did. With Jon patrolling half of Westeros on dragonback he hadn’t the time to lead the northern forces effectively, let alone govern the north as a Stark ought. That and Snow’s grim outlook grew grimmer each time Jaime saw him—the man needed to know the last of his family was safe. 

Not to mention the other truth they all knew and tried to ignore: Tyrion unraveled a little more each day Sansa remained in captivity. 

“Brienne cares more for your sister’s safety than she does her own,” Jaime said. “She will aid you.”

_Or die trying._ He breathed out a mirthless laugh. That was what he had never been able to accept—there was no way to keep her safe. The woman would fling herself into the jaws of a dragon for Catelyn’s daughters.

_Just as she stepped between me and destruction once or twice. Before. Before..._ He swallowed. 

Before she had removed every trace of him from her life. 

She’d stashed Oathkeeper away somewhere like a shameful secret. And she’d discarded the armor he gave her. Her new plate was chill grey, as though she’d washed away every hint of the deep color he had once chosen for her. And just as she had the night before, she spat _ser_ at him like a curse, an epithet—she may as well have called him Kingslayer. 

At least when she raged a spark of heat came back to her eyes. None of her words were as damning as her icy demeanor. All his memories of her were in autumn and winter, but they were never cold. Not even when they were enemies. No, his memories of her were raw and scorching—blue, like the center of a candle flame. And he kept them buried deep, where they could not burn him.

“M’lord, is she with you?” 

He looked up.

Rohanne’s nurse stumbled toward the fire. The poor woman looked sleep rumpled and terrified. One of the child’s harried guards trailed behind her, a sheepish look on his face.

“No.” He rose and nodded to Jon before he went in search of his missing daughter.


	4. Chapter 4

Brienne woke from a dead sleep. She felt the way she had in the dungeons when she sensed she was being watched and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The brazier beside the cot burned low but cast enough light that she could see the entrance of the tent. She expected to find some servant had entered but saw no one.

She sat up and fumbled for her sword. “Who’s there?”

“This is _my_ tent.” The small voice came from behind her.

The breath she held rushed out as the child walked around the cot into the light. 

_Oh._

Brienne knew in an instant who she was.

She was lovely, this golden-haired child of Jaime’s, with her twinkling green eyes and her dimples and her hint of a smile that was Jaime’s hint of a smile. Just what Brienne had expected since she’d first heard the child existed.

Unexpected was the red birthmark that covered most of the girl’s right cheek. In all the stories Brienne had heard, no one had mentioned it.

The Westerlands were lost to the Lannisters, so she ought to have realized the child might be with them in the camp, but the thought had not occurred to her. And if the child was here, then her mother must be as well. 

Brienne had no wish to see Cersei.

“You were sleeping,” the girl said. She sat on the rug beside the cot. Her long tunic was soft, pale wool over dark breeches. Around her waist was strapped a tiny wooden sword in a red leather scabbard.

“Yes,” Brienne said. The child must belong with her parents or a servant, perhaps a septa. She was unsure what to do—she so rarely spoke to children. Particularly children this small.

“This is Father’s bed,” the girl said as she leaned forward and plucked a small wooden horse from behind a leg of the cot.

“Yes—I...he lent it me. I had nowhere to sleep.”

Rohanne peered up at her, perplexed. “Oh? Where is _your_ bed?”

“Far away. At my home,” Brienne said. 

“Did you forget the name of it?” The girl’s head tilted to the side and her eyes were all mischief. She looked like Jaime and Cersei, but there was something of Tyrion about her as well.

“Tarth. My home is Evenfall, on the isle of Tarth. I am Brienne of Tarth.”

“I am Rohanne Lannister, of Casterly Rock,” the child thumped herself on the chest.

“Yes.” Brienne put her feet down on the ground. “Where is your—”

A rustle and scrape sounded from outside the tent entrance. “Brienne?” Jaime called, low and urgent.

Rohanne shot to her feet and jumped onto the cot, then tumbled off the other side to hide.

Brienne cleared her throat to try to make her weakened voice loud enough. “Yes, _I—_ she’s in here.”

The flap flew open. Jaime strode in, thunderous; his black leather gambeson flapped behind him as he approached the cot. He peered over Brienne’s shoulder at Rohanne crouched on the ground behind her. “You’ve scared the life out of your poor nurse.”

Rohanne’s voice turned petulant. “I want stories.” 

Brienne risked a glance down at the girl who glared up at Jaime.

Jaime returned the glare. “Bed. _Now.”_

Suddenly there was a squeak and the girl was in tears. _“Stories.”_

In the space of a sigh, Jaime’s face went from fury to mush. Brienne stifled a gasp. She’d never seen anything like it.

“All right, one story,” Jaime grumbled. 

The girl popped to her feet and ran around the cot to her father who caught her up in his arms. The child cried into his neck. 

“You mustn’t leave the tent without telling Nurse,” he soothed, his voice gentle as he pecked a kiss on her head.

Jaime gave Brienne an apologetic look and shook his head with a roll of his eyes and a small smile, as though he expected her to understand what had just happened, as though she hadn’t thrown him out a short time before.

He turned to leave, but then turned back, balanced the weeping child with his right arm as he reached into his gambeson and drew out a coiled length of leather cord and held it out to her. “So you won’t lose your ring.”

Brienne was speechless. At sea. She took the cord, then simply sat and watched him go.

Before the tent flap closed, Rohanne stopped her sobs long enough to look up from Jaime’s shoulder and flash a grin at Brienne.

Jaime walked along the length of the tent outside and Brienne heard him begin to speak. “Once, long ago, Lann the Clever caught a falling star...”

Brienne lay back down on the cot, staring up at the red canvas ceiling of the tent long after Jaime’s voice faded away.

He told her one night in Winterfell, with tears in his eyes, how he’d held Princess Myrcella as she died and explained how the girl knew he was her father. She remembered the tears in his voice when he talked about Tommen’s despair, how his sister should have known what the boy’s grief would drive him to do. That he’d wanted to be their father was plain enough, but she hadn’t truly understood what that meant until she’d seen him with Rohanne moments before.

It was Tyrion who first told her about the child when he told her that he’d found Jaime and Cersei in Lys. She’d brooded on the information for days, weeks—years if she was honest. 

In all the time they’d shared a bed in Winterfell, Jaime had taken great care not to conceive a child. He would pull out of her and spill himself on the sheet, or her thigh, or her navel—never inside her. At the time she’d been grateful that he was so deliberate about it. Winterfell had been no place for a babe, and even then she knew things between her and Jaime were far from settled.

After he left her, she’d been glad to be free of that one worry. At the time, she had assumed it was something he’d learned to do with Cersei, to prevent any more accidents. 

Then Tyrion had told her about the babe born in Lys. Told her that Jaime had known that Cersei was with child before he rode north. Jaime hadn’t been careful with Cersei. 

She had added it to the tally she kept in her head—the list of things she should have understood were signs that Jaime regretted ever touching her—like the occasional sullen silences she excused, and the distant stares she tried to ignore, and the fact that he’d never even once hinted at marriage or betrothal. 

Perhaps that was why he bristled at the suggestion that he’d lied. He never promised her anything, never vowed. Nor had she made promises. But if in some ways he had still said too much, she had wondered in the weeks after he left if she’d said too little.

Not when they bickered, or when they discussed serious matters, that was much as it always had been. And what they’d done together in bed had been simple to her, straightforward—she understood it. But what came before and after, life in the margins beyond the heat they shared in the night, that had been complicated. 

No matter how she tried, she couldn’t say his name as warmly as he said hers when they passed in a hallway, or match the soft way he smiled when she entered a room. She’d never been certain how to respond to his easy affection. It was like a foreign tongue to her, though she had tried to learn it. If she’d been a proper lady, if she hadn’t wanted to run half the time when he looked at her across the great hall or the practice yard, would things have been different?

The night he left her, she’d stood in the cold and watched him saddle his horse as she tried to find the words to stop him. She begged him to stay for his own sake because he deserved better. Then she begged him to stay for hers. And she had touched him, reached for him, as though she had every right. It came easy to her then. At the end.

_“You think I’m a good man?”_

If someone had come at him with a sword or tried to stab him with a dagger, she would have known what to do. She could have protected him, saved him. An enemy could be fought. But she hadn’t known how to save him from himself. From his love.

She hadn’t known how to save herself either. 

The cord he’d given her grew warm in the palm of her hand. She unspooled it and threaded it through her ring, then sat up and tied it around her neck. 

When she lay back again, the seal sat heavy against her breastbone and she grabbed it and held it tight so the imprint of her coat of arms pressed heavy into her flesh. She had been too long in the cold, dark dungeon, but now she was free.

The next day dawned bright. She rose as the birds began to sing before the servants arrived, and clumsily plaited her own hair to hang down her back, then strapped her sword belt about her waist. When she walked outside she shielded her eyes against the blinding sun and asked the guard beside her tent how to find Jon Snow. Her legs began to ache as she followed the way he sent her, but she felt alive again.

Around her, the camp began to stir to morning life, and on the ramparts of the castle she saw movement as well. Her dungeon-weakened eyes still worked so poorly in the daylight that it took her a moment to recognize Cersei Lannister’s golden locks and pointed stare. Even at a distance, Brienne felt the woman’s appraisal from atop the castle’s thick stone walls. She stopped and stared back. Glared back. 

Whatever courtesy she might once have shown the fallen queen had long since withered. Cersei’s last hope for redemption had died when she’d lied and betrayed them all, left them to face the Long Night alone. Not to mention what had come after.

So Brienne glared. She glared until Cersei tilted her head and smirked and turned away. 

_Let there be no ambiguity between us,_ she thought. 

They were enemies.

She found Jon Snow holding a piece of toasted bread, staring into the flames of his morning campfire as though it spoke to him. He barely glanced at her. Her breath had grown short even from the short walk and she took a moment to gather herself.

“My lord,” she said. “I would travel with you to Riverrun.”

His face scrunched in confusion. “Yes, I thought we settled this last night. When you’re well.”

“Now,” she said. “Today. I’m well enough.”

He shook his head to protest, but paused and looked her over. Then he nodded. “You’ll have to let me strap you to the saddle.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “If you must.”

“I think I should. Gather your things and meet me by the dragon. He’s just beyond the horses.”

“Thank you,” she said. 

Jon laughed a little. “Don’t thank me yet.”

If the walk to find Jon made her tired, the walk back to the tent left her exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back under the furs on Jaime’s cot and sleep the day away, but that wouldn’t help her.

The serving women had cleaned Jaime’s leather cloak and aired it out. She took it and the sack of her armor, which she could barely lift to throw over her shoulder, and she went. 

Scarce ten paces from the tent she met Jaime walking the opposite direction with Rohanne on his heels.

Jaime stopped short and took her in. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s Brin,” Rohanne said, looking up at her. “You’re tall.”

Brienne nodded to them both, mumbled a good morning, and continued on her way. 

Jaime fell into step with her so she picked up her pace. 

He stayed at her shoulder; his voice cut. “You think you’re strong enough to ride a dragon?”

Somewhere behind them Rohanne gasped. “You get to ride a dragon? I want to ride too! I love Robb!”

She couldn’t answer either of them. Her breath came too short at her fast pace and her arms shook as she struggled to keep her grip on the sack.

“Here,” Jaime snapped. The sack slid off her shoulder as he took it. From the corner of her eye, she saw he continued to follow her with it, so she said nothing.

“Why are we running?” Rohanne called.

“Wait a fortnight,” Jaime said. He’d changed his tone to placate her. “Rest. Build your endurance.”

She saw the horses now and was glad she’d nearly reached Jon because her vision had begun to grow dim at the edges. Her lungs burned. 

“Brienne. Stop.” Jaime tried to order her now, like a wayward soldier. “Before you fall over.”

There was some danger that would happen, but she wouldn’t let Jaime know. She smelled the dragon before she saw it, beyond where the horses were roped in. Silver grey, the great beast lay stretched out on the grass beside the burbling stream that flowed below the castle walls and along the edge of camp. The thing looked sound asleep as Jon worked at the straps of the saddle on its back.

Brienne stopped before she reached them, and faced the stream. She worked to catch her breath as Jaime stopped beside her. He dropped the sack of armor at his feet.

If he hadn’t been there she would have bent double, but she kept her feet and stood straight, then held her hand out to him and managed to rasp out, “Dagger. Please.”

He made an exasperated sound but rustled at his belt while she forced her breathing to return to normal. The familiar hilt of his knife thunked into her palm. 

Wordlessly, she grasped her long braid behind her head and held it straight back with her fist. Then she ran the blade swiftly up its base where it was plaited to the back of her scalp. Jaime’s blade was sharp as she knew it would be, and the plait sheared off in an instant. She tossed the long blonde length of it into the stream.

“Is that what you did when you flew to Renly’s side all those years ago?” he asked as he watched the plait bob away toward camp.

She looked at him and nodded. “War. No time for vanity.”

_“Vanity?”_ he whispered as he shook his head.

Rohanne tugged at the leg of Brienne’s breeches. The girl held one of her own plaits aloft. “Now do mine!”

“Is this everything?” Jon strode toward them, gestured to the sack. 

“Yes.” Brienne nodded.

Jon picked up the sack and darted an uncomfortable glance between her and Jaime. Then he looked at Rohanne. “Would you like to greet Robb?”

_“Yes,”_ Rohanne said, solemn as a septon, her plait dropped and forgotten as she followed Jon.

Brienne looked up, met Jaime’s gaze. She hadn’t noticed he’d taken off his sword belt. He pulled off the sheath for his dagger and held it out to her. She looked down at it and shook her head, refused, then she gripped the dagger by its blade and held it out until he took it back. Which he did.

He sheathed the dagger and let his hand fall limp to his side, then pointed his chin at her, narrowed his eyes. “Do as you will. Ride for Riverrun. But you’ll do Sansa no good if you don’t recover your strength before you try a rescue.”

“I’ll be the judge of when I’ve recovered my strength,” she said.

His eyelids fell closed as a muscle in his jaw worked. After a moment he opened his eyes and looked off to the side.

This was goodbye she realized. They’d shared many goodbyes before. None easy. Each difficult for its own reason. This one should have been the easiest, the simplest—she wanted to be away from him. And she was sure, despite his concern for her health, that he wanted her gone. Yet she fought a sudden urge to linger.

He stood before her with his gambeson open, his undertunic partly unlaced underneath. Widow’s Wail was clamped under his right arm and its sword belt hung loose. His face was freshly washed, she could see how wet his hair was above his forehead and near his ears. There was something so familiar in his morning dishevel that made her heart ache. 

“I will have your clothing and cloak returned,” she said.

He scoffed and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Keep them. Do you think I would begrudge you—” He glanced off to the side again, nodded as though he’d said something to himself, then looked back at her, his anger gone. “I understand. You hate me that much.”

_“No.”_ The word was out before she could stop it and her mouth worked as she tried to recover. She couldn’t look directly at him, so she looked at the water gurgling away downstream instead. She didn’t want him to know that she still loved him, because it made her seem pathetic and small, but he loved Cersei—which of them was the greater fool? “I-I...pity you, ser.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him.

Then his eyes widened madly at something over her shoulder as he sprinted past her.

Jon gave a small hoot. “Uh-ah, _no—_ don’t hug him like that.”

Brienne turned. The dragon had yawned and Rohanne took the opportunity to hug one of its massive lower fangs. The dragon made a warning click as Jon plucked the small girl up and turned to toss her at her father when he was within a few paces.

She walked toward them, grateful for the distraction.

Jaime caught his daughter and hugged her close, then whistled at the guards Brienne hadn’t realized followed them. He handed the girl off to one of them and said she should be taken to break her fast.

“I want to stay with Robb,” Rohanne cried.

“You want eggs,” Jaime said.

“Robb wants eggs,” she wailed as the guard took her away. “Robb loves eggs!”

Brienne looked at the dragon and saw that Jon had already secured her sack of armor. He stood beside the dragon’s slowly blinking eye and waved at Rohanne as she disappeared into the camp.

“Robb?” she asked him.

The corner of his mouth tilted up in a sad smile; he gave the dragon’s cheek an affectionate pat. “Robb.”

“Brienne.”

She turned back to look at Jaime. He searched her eyes, her face, her eyes again. 

“We must go,” she said.

He held Widow’s Wail out to her. “Valyrian steel. It’s faster, _lighter._ Even if you aren’t at full strength—”

“No,” she whispered. She felt weak, her legs trembled. 

“Take it.” He thrust it toward her. “Return it later, if you wish. Or keep it. _Take it.”_

He needed it. Just from the brief moments she’d seen him fight a few days before she knew he was better with his left hand than he had been in Winterfell, but without the Valyrian steel he would be slower.

“No.” She shook her head, resolute.

“He’s right.” Jon walked around her and took the sword. 

Jaime released a ragged breath as Jon placed the sword in a long pouch at the back of the saddle. Her mouth was dry and she licked her lips, ready to protest, but decided against it. She could always send the sword back with Jon later.

Jaime stepped close, stared hard into her eyes. “You put your faith in me. You’re the only one who ever did. And I betrayed that trust—I never deserved it to begin with.” He squinted hard into the distance, his hand clenched into a fist and unclenched again. After a moment, he sighed and looked back at her. “Tyrion says I mustn’t try to win your forgiveness, but I’ll go to my grave wishing I had it.”

He swallowed and looked away again. “Forgive me, Brienne.”

She forgot how to breathe as she searched for a response.

Behind her, Jon rustled something on the saddle and she glanced over her shoulder to see he was ready to leave.

Jaime still waited in front of her. So close. Every part of his face was tense, the arrogance he always used as a shield firmly in place. He looked up at her, a wry smile tried to claim his face.

“Goodbye,” she said. She might have thanked him again for rescuing her if she thought she could get the words out, but she couldn’t. 

“Please don’t die,” he told her.

She jerked her head in acknowledgment but immediately turned to go. Didn’t trust her eyes to stay dry.

Jon buckled her to the saddle, as he’d threatened, while Jaime stood and watched them. She met his gaze one last time as the dragon jerked and rose into the air with a stomach-lurching leap. Then the dragon turned and she lost sight of him. She made herself face forward, to look at the horizon over Jon’s head, not to look back.

Brienne felt like she might vomit as the world below them sped past while the dragon tilted and wheeled through the sky. It was difficult to hold herself upright, far harder than riding a horse. She began to understand why they thought her too weak, but it was too late now.

“Sorry about the sword,” Jon said over his shoulder after they’d flown for a few minutes.

“He needs it.” She could barely speak as the dragon suddenly climbed higher.

“I’ll take it back to him after a couple turns of the moon,” he said. “I just couldn’t watch him like that anymore. When my father first taught us to hunt he said it was cruel to let a wounded animal suffer.”

She knew Jaime was far from a wounded animal where she was concerned but kept her mouth shut.

The ride to Riverrun was comparable to the ones her captors submitted her to, chained and hooded on the floor of a wagon. Jon had been right to tie her to the saddle. She asked him where the saddle came from as she didn’t recall Daenerys ever using one.

“Bran,” he said. “He imagined it. Or remembered it. You know.”

She did, unfortunately. In Winterfell, and later King’s Landing, she had spent enough time around King Bran to know how odd the things that came out of his mind, and his mouth, could be.

When they finally spotted Riverrun, the afternoon sun was beginning to sink in the west. The enormous size of the host surrounding the place surprised her. 

“Lord Bronn has arrived,” Jon said as they touched down beside the Tumblestone. She could barely stand after Jon helped her slide down from the dragon’s back. The creature’s enormous eye watched her as she strapped Widow’s Wail to hang on her right hip, opposite her father’s sword. Robb grumbled when he caught her looking at him.

“Ignore him,” Jon said. “If he had his way, all he’d ever do is sleep.”

Squires and servants came to greet them. They were given horses to ride through the gates of Riverrun. Brienne could barely mount hers.

The last time she’d entered the castle it had been held by the Blackfish, the last stronghold of Robb Stark’s kingdom. Despite the war, it was a somewhat more cheerful place now.

They dismounted in the bailey and Brienne hoped she might be given time to wash and collect herself before—

“You’re alive!”

She turned to find herself face-to-face with Tormund Giantsbane. Jon peeped over his shoulder with a grimace and a shrug. Tormund’s red hair was still wild and his beard looked as untamed and scratchy as ever, though he wore light brown leathers rather than fur.

Brienne hadn’t seen him since she accompanied the newly crowned Queen Sansa on her visit to the Wall, not long after they’d returned from King’s Landing. It was during the period of time Sansa had dubbed the “Madness of Lys,” the first months after she’d learned Jaime was alive. 

“Yes, alive,” she told Tormund, bone-weary and in no mood to deal with the man. At least he hadn’t tried to touch her.

“You look awful,” Tormund said with a sad shake of his head as he looked her over. “How did you get free? Did Lannister trade his head for you?”

She recoiled. _“What?”_

Lady Roslin Frey appeared at her elbow with a maester and she was glad of the excuse to turn away from Tormund. Brienne knew the lady of Riverrun a little from the time of the Great Council in King’s Landing. 

“Lady Brienne,” Lady Roslin said, “we received a raven from your maester concerning your care. Will you come with me?”

Lady Roslin gave her a small chamber overlooking the Red Fork. The maester examined her and bade her rest, which she did after she ate the soup he had the servants bring.

There were times in the dungeon that she’d thought the feel of a featherbed must have been a luxury she’d imagined, so used to cold stone floors she could no longer imagine something so soft. The linen sheets were crisp and smooth and scented with lavender. Brienne rubbed her cheek against them. Jaime had said something to her once, one night when she nestled her face against one of the fine furs covering her bed.

_“You like soft things,”_ he’d said, part accusation, part laughter. When she closed her eyes she could still remember how he’d cupped her cheek in his hand as he said it, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. She had turned away from him and pretended to fall asleep, tears in her eyes, uncertain how to respond.

_“Forgive me, Brienne.”_ A new memory. Different altogether.

What could she say to that? _I already have. I never will._

Once she returned his sword to him, he would be fine. He had lost his home, but he had his child, had his...sister. She’d seen the cocksure way he walked that night when he brought her back to camp, the self-satisfied, arrogant sway of his shoulders after he’d dismounted and faced Tyrion—he’d so obviously been a man in possession of all he wanted, needed. His life was all he wished it to be.

The evening sun sunk lower outside her window and she closed her eyes to sleep just a bit before she went to supper. 

When she woke next, it was midday, and Riverrun’s kindly old maester was patting her hand with gentle urgency. “Forgive me, my lady, but you’ve been asleep the better part of a day. It is best you wake and eat a bit.”

She forced herself out of bed, though every bone, joint, and muscle ached. They brought her a bath when she asked, and she scrubbed her skin pink and raw, convinced she would never be free of all the dungeon filth.

While her short hair dried, she dressed again in Jaime’s clothes, which had been laundered for her. After a moment’s hesitation, she strapped Widow’s Wail about her waist.

They led her to Edmure Tully’s solar where the lords and commanders of the armies supped. 

Lord Edmure nodded at her with faint distaste and she was seated between Bronn and Jon. Bronn looked older than he had three years earlier in King’s Landing but seemed far more carefree than Jon who scowled at the room.

The lord of Highgarden sized her up, then chuckled when his gaze caught on Widow’s Wail. “He’s a predictable sad cunt, I’ll give him that.”

She glared at him until he raised his hands in surrender. 

They brought her a mouth-watering bowl of beef stew and she made herself savor it. There were several northern faces she knew at tables around the room and she exchanged distant nodded greetings with them, and did the same with some of the riverlords she knew from her time with Lady Catelyn. Tormund waved at her from a corner table and she pretended not to see him. A few lords from the Reach she recognized from her time with Renly. Then her gaze caught on Hyle Hunt who raised his eyebrows and tipped a goblet at her.

As if seeing Jaime and Tormund again over the space of only a few days hadn’t been enough.

When the meal was finished, Edmure invited the main commanders to a small council chamber where talk was traded about the latest movement of Targaryen troops and orders from the king.

Before the meeting broke up, Jon announced that Brienne would command the northern forces in his absence. To her surprise, his men took it in stride.

Jon held her back with Edmure, Bronn, and Tormund as the others left.

Bronn pulled a small rolled parchment from his pocket and handed it to Edmure. “They’ve lost Gendry Baratheon.”

“What do you mean _lost_ him?” Tormund asked. 

Bronn pulled a face. “I mean, the Targaryens _had_ him, at some holdfast on Cracklaw Point in the crownlands, then they _lost_ him, somehow. That’s the word I received.”

“He must have escaped,” Edmure said as he handed the scroll to Jon.

Bronn shrugged. 

Brienne knew she had as much duty to help rescue Gendry Baratheon as she did Sansa Stark—perhaps more. Her liege lord was a strange man, but she felt an odd affection for him and his unusual ways. At times he reminded her of Renly with his dark hair and Baratheon look, but then he would mock a bannerman’s courtly manners, or speak to a fisherman with more deference than a lord and she would be reminded that they were very different men. 

Still, Gendry listened to her when she talked, and he often sought her advice. More than once since she had become the Evenstar he had asked her to attend him at Storm’s End to help with some military task or other. He knew the weaknesses in his education and sought assistance when he needed it—a rare trait amongst the lords she had known.

Jon read the note, then dropped his hand. “I don’t know what we could do to help him, with no idea where he is.”

Edmure cleared his throat and looked hard at Jon. “Might this make them more eager to trade for Queen Sansa?”

“Have you offered ransom for her?” Brienne broke her silence. Tyrion had indicated it wasn’t possible, but she hadn’t directly asked Jon.

All four men looked at her, clearly uncomfortable. Jon shook his head hard and swallowed.

It was Bronn who finally answered her, as he stretched out in his chair and crossed his ankles. “You see, the dragon queen doesn’t like to negotiate for hostages.”

“Well,” Jon broke in with an exasperated sigh, “as it happens, we may know why she wouldn’t ransom Brienne or Gendry. They have Targaryen ancestry. Tyrion believes she wants to breed dragonriders.”

Edmure looked appalled, Bronn looked disinterested, Tormund looked at her and waggled his eyebrows.

“I suppose that explains that,” Edmure said.

Brienne’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Did Queen Sansa offer a ransom for me before she was taken?”

Edmure snorted. “Jaime offered ransoms for you. Ten thousand gold dragons, then twenty when the first bird received no answer. When we found out Tyrion was livid, quite rightly, the fool was bargaining against us. If he offered so much for _you,_ how much would it take to ransom my niece? Well, we found out, didn’t we?”

_Twenty thousand._ Brienne’s pulse raced as her fingers slid to the golden hilt of Widow’s Wail, so familiar, yet so strange at her own hip. Her father had once offered to ransom her for three hundred, which had sounded like a great fortune.

Bronn watched Brienne close, as Edmure had not. His eyes dropped to Widow’s Wail again. “Several ransoms were offered for all three of you,” Bronn said. He stared hard into her eyes. “We only ever received one reply.”

“She’ll side with me,” Jon said, with a sharp look at Bronn and Edmure, “you know that.”

Edmure frowned. “Daenerys agreed to release my niece in exchange for Jon Snow, King Bran, Tyrion Lannister, and Cersei Lannister. Well, in exchange for either their persons or their heads.”

“Bad bargain,” Tormund said. He shook his head as if he imparted the wisdom of the ages.

“Then everyone became a martyr,” Bronn said. “Lord Snow here said to send back word that she could have him.”

Jon looked hard at Brienne. He truly thought she would agree he should trade himself.

“We need him and his filthy dragon,” Edmure intoned. “What use to regain my niece if we lose the entire war and every war to come?”

Bronn shrugged. “Tyrion volunteered himself and his sister, immediately.”

Edmure rolled his eyes. “Jaime protested.”

“Jaime,” Bronn snapped, “rightly pointed out that we had no way of knowing that Daenerys would keep her word, and that we’d be lost without Tyrion—which we would.”

“She’d keep her word,” Jon said.

“No one considered offering the king, nor did he offer himself,” Bronn said as his eyes danced with mischief. “To be fair, Lady Cersei never volunteered herself either.”

_No surprise there._

Edmure stood and took a deep breath, gave the room a haughty look. “It’s time to send another raven, reopen negotiations.”

“You ought to reopen negotiations with your whiny brat of a nephew instead,” Bronn said.

_“Lord Arryn,”_ Edmure said with a sneer at Bronn, “has never accepted my opinion on his duty to the family.”

Bronn broke into laughter. Edmure scowled, then walked out and slammed the door behind him. 

As soon as the door was shut, Bronn’s laughter ceased and he took a long sip from his goblet. “Highborn cock,” he muttered.

Brienne stared at Jon. “You can’t exchange yourself. They’re right, we need you. Queen Sansa would agree.”

Jon shook his head.

“But it was a bloody noble thing to offer,” Tormund pronounced, pounding a fist on the table. Then he swung his face toward her and nodded hard with great emotion. “Just like that fucker Lannister, he was noble in the end too.”

Tormund was hard to follow at the best of times, and she hated to even engage with him, but had to ask, “Tyrion?” 

“Jaime,” Jon said, as he stood and walked over to a window overlooking the river.

Bronn chuckled again and tilted his head toward her. “We were all in this very room when we received the ransom demand for the Queen in the North. Great high lord-of-all _Edmure Tully_ stormed out much as he did just now. I do believe Lord Snow wandered over to that very window—”

“He did!” Tormund declared. “He was sad.”

“He was,” Bronn said with a sarcastic nod. “Lord Tyrion did not go quietly. No, he knocked over two or three chairs and shouted as he went out to find strong drink.”

“Brave little man,” Tormund said.

“Yes, brave.” Bronn nodded at Tormund. Then he turned his gaze hard on her. “And that left us three and Jaime _fucking_ Lannister. I believe he sat just where you are now, my lady. Nodded his stupid square handsome head a bit as if someone was talking to him, which no one was. See, he’d heard something in that ransom note that none of the rest of us heard. So he sits there and he says, ‘That’s why Daenerys won’t ransom her.’ Only he didn’t mean _her_ as in one Sansa, Queen in the North. He meant _you,_ one lady Evenstar—”

“Just _the_ Evenstar,” Jon cut in. “She’s _the_ Evenstar.”

Her breath came hard, though she hadn’t moved. It felt as though she’d just run up a dozen flights of stairs.

“Yes, yes,” Bronn continued. _“The_ Evenstar. Jaime looks around the room and says, ‘She wants my head.’ Only this _she_ is the dragon queen, one Daenerys Targaryen. And he says, ‘My handwriting’s always been shit and it’s worse with only my left hand. Someone write the note to Daenerys for me, I can’t ask the maester or Tyrion will know. I’ll sign it when you’re done.’ So Lord Snow leaves his window and comes to sit at that table with a quill and a little parchment and asks, ‘What should it say?’ To which Jaime responds, ‘Just three words—’”

Jon turned away from the window and gave her a sad smile. “‘Name your price.’”

Her lips were dry. A lump filled her throat.

“Name your price.” Tormund slapped the table and shook his head at her with a glint in his eye. “A good death for a one-handed man. His head in exchange for a powerful woman. A good bargain.”

It wasn’t. It wasn’t a good bargain at all. Bronn and Jon knew it and gave her rueful smiles.

“He received no response,” Bronn said. “He’d been so sure he would. We’d already tracked you once and he’d gone racing out to find you, but they’d moved you already.”

She hadn’t thought. All she’d assumed was that he’d incidentally heard where she was being held and decided to rescue her in his thoughtless jump-in-a-bear-pit way. 

“We missed you once more after that,” Jon said. “I almost couldn’t believe it when I saw them walk you out into the castle yard at last.”

“You were there?”

Jon nodded. “I was supposed to drop in and grab you if it all went wrong.”

“Thank you,” she whispered to him. They were all watching her and she couldn’t endure it a moment longer. She stood and glanced at the three of them in turn, then left with firm steps she hoped didn’t betray how much she wanted to flee the room. 

Her small bedchamber was quiet and dark as she undressed; her sheets were cool when she slid into bed. She closed her fingers in a fist around her signet ring.

None of what they’d said made sense to her. She wanted to ask Jaime why he thought himself worth so little that he would trade his life for her own. But knew she never could.


	5. Chapter 5

They rode through the gates of Maidenpool just as Jon flew over, his dragon a sweeping shadow against the mid-morning sun.

_Finally._

“His timing could be better,” Tyrion muttered. “The dragon would have been helpful _before_ we stormed the town.”

Jaime said nothing as he watched the dragon hover, then land, somewhere near the harbor. They hadn’t seen Jon in over a fortnight. Not since Brienne had flown away with him to Riverrun.

The wind came gentle off the Bay of Crabs, and he caught whiffs of smoke from the fires the ironborn set before they fled on their ships. He gave commands for hours on end; sent men to fight fires in the harbormaster’s offices and the granaries; ordered others to shore up defenses on the walls for the night.

It was nearly dusk by the time he saw to it all the captives and noblewomen were ensconced in Maidenpool’s large castle, which Lord Mooten had fled when the ironborn attacked. As Jaime left the great hall, he heard Cersei order the lord’s chambers prepared for her.

The morning they left their last encampment he’d gone to the castle to fetch Cersei and as he rode out of the castle yard, he saw the middle-aged lord and lady standing side-by-side to watch them go. He imagined theirs was not a love match. Most likely they’d been thrown together for the sake of titles, or land, or gold. Yet the lord had grasped his lady’s hand and fiercely kissed the back of it when the last of Jaime’s party rode out the gates.

He wondered what it was like to watch the threat of dragonfire and destruction ride away rather than be the one who carried it to the doorsteps of honest people.

Maidenpool’s narrow streets slouched toward gloom at the end of day. Gulls filled the twilight sky with their calls as he walked through the town. He licked his lips, tasted the salt that lingered there and his memory filled with Brienne.

_“I miss the sound of the sea birds at sunset,”_ she had said once. _“The taste of salt in the air.”_

She’d been half asleep and he’d been trying to suss out how long she meant for them to stay in Winterfell. Instead, she’d inadvertently told him she longed for home. _“I miss the blue of the Straits on a sunny day. And the way a storm rolls in off the Bay. You’ll see.”_

_“And I’ll teach you to love the roar of the Sunset Sea when we visit the Rock,”_ he’d whispered against the soft skin of her neck.

But he’d never set foot on Tarth. And she’d never seen Casterly Rock.

_We can part now with nothing between us._

The sky above grew dark and the birds hushed.

Tyrion had commandeered a large inn at the center of town for his headquarters. Jaime entered the timbered main room to find it warmly lit by firelight; full of lords and captains—ribald in song and sodden with drink as they celebrated their victory. Once Tyrion would have been in the midst of them, but he sat morose in a corner with Jon who didn’t look much better. Rohanne sat atop the table picking morsels from both their plates while her nurse dozed on a bench against the wall.

“The innkeep will show you to your room,” Tyrion told him. It was his brother’s vague way of saying Jon needed to converse with the two of them.

Jon met Jaime’s gaze and nodded in greeting. It was all he could do not to immediately ask about Brienne.

Rohanne jumped on Jaime’s back from the table, near choking him with her arms around his neck. They all climbed the steps to his third floor room, with its large bed and lofty beamed ceilings.

Tyrion sat at a small table and Jon wandered over to the window. Rohanne’s nurse slipped away into the small adjoining room to sleep. The innkeep and his small son followed them. The boy was perhaps a year or two older than Ro and lit candles around the room while his father built up the fire.

The boy, voice full of curiosity, asked Rohanne, “What happened to your face?”

Ro dropped the toy horse she’d been playing with and stood. She grabbed Jaime’s thigh and mashed her cheek against it.

Jaime’s rested his hand atop her head.

“Rotten brat,” the innkeep snarled. He grabbed the boy by the shoulder.

“He meant no harm,” Tyrion said before Jaime could get a word out.

Rohanne watched her uncle, her mouth turned down.

Tyrion gave her a pained smile, then looked at the boy. “She was kissed by a dragon.”

Ro’s eyes went as wide as the boy’s did.

“You know a dragon?” the boy asked her as his father pushed him toward the door.

Rohanne nodded; she let go of Jaime’s leg. “Yes. Robb is big and he smells bad. I love him.”

The boy looked ready to ask another question before his father pulled him out the door.

Jaime glanced at Tyrion. He’d always known Rohanne would face this as she grew, when she was old enough to travel or go to court. She’d been torn away from the Rock and forced to confront the cruelty of strangers so much sooner than he would have hoped.

She left her toys on the ground and walked over to Tyrion. “Did Robb kiss me?”

“No.” Tyrion shook his head with a sad smile. “It was another dragon. Drogon. The great black and red dragon ridden by Daenerys Targaryen. He kissed you before you were born.”

“Oh,” she said, then she smiled and went back to her toy horses.

Tyrion gave him a dismayed look but Jaime only shrugged.

_Let her believe she was kissed by a dragon,_ he thought.

Jon watched them all from his place by the window, his face clouded.

“You have news?” Jaime asked him. He tried not to look too eager.

“Daenerys lost Gendry,” Jon said.

Tyrion grunted. “Escape?”

“Don’t know.” Jon exhaled slowly. “Bronn’s spies heard about it over a fortnight ago, but there’s been no further word. Maybe they recaptured him.”

“We’ll keep an eye out for him,” Jaime said. “Maybe they’ll move Sansa now.”

Tyrion snorted with derision. “Just ask him how Brienne fares, don’t pretend you’re concerned for Sansa.”

Jaime glared at his little brother. Tyrion didn’t notice, he simply stared hard over the lip of his wine goblet into the flames within the hearth.

“I’ve been in King’s Landing for three days,” Jon said, “but when last I saw her, Brienne was eating ham for breakfast. She’s begun to train with a sword again.”

“Good,” Tyrion said, gruff and almost begrudging. “Good. We need her.”

It _was_ good. Stubborn as she was, Jaime wasn’t surprised. So long as she didn’t push herself too hard.

But there was nothing he could do about that. She’d made that plain enough when she stood on legs scarce strong enough to hold her and mounted a dragon to escape him.

She didn’t trust him. Didn’t even trust his worry for her safety. For a moment or two before they parted he almost thought he saw fear in her gaze as if she thought he might hurt her.

Mistrust was all she felt for him now. Mistrust, anger, loathing, and the strangely baffled tone she used to explain, almost gently, that she pitied him.

Jon cleared his throat. “Bran sent me to fetch you, Tyrion.”

Tyrion groaned. He hated dragonflight.

“For how long?” Jaime asked.

“I wasn’t told,” Jon said. “Ser Davos is still in Braavos, mayhaps Bran wants you close in his absence.”

“I suppose we leave at first light?” Tyrion asked.

Jon nodded.

Rohanne walked over to Jon. _“I_ could go see King Bran.”

“You’re too little to ride a dragon,” Jaime said. He picked her up and dipped her toward Tyrion for a kiss on the cheek as she let out a disappointed whine. “Time for sleep.”

She mumbled but didn’t fight as he took her into the next room and tucked her in. When he returned to his room, Jon was preparing to leave. Jaime followed him out into the hallway, careful to pull the door closed behind him lest Tyrion overhear.

“Brienne. Beyond the food and the training. Is she—”

Jon’s wince wasn’t unkind. “She’s better. Stronger than when you saw her last.”

“She’ll push herself too hard,“ Jaime said. “Try to do too much.”

“Yes.” Jon sighed. “But I can’t stop her any more than you can.”

“I know,” Jaime said. _I know._ It was fortunate that Bran had sent Bronn to meet the Arryn forces that had begun to stir from the High Road north of Saltpans rather than Jon’s men. The thought of her facing battle in her weakened state terrified him.

“What do you want me to tell you, Jaime?”

_Tell me she won’t be hurt. Promise me,_ he thought, but there was no one who could tell him that. He let the subject drop.

“Sansa?” Jaime asked. He kept his voice low. “Has Bronn heard anything new?”

Jon snorted. “Bronn hasn’t heard anything. Lord Edmure wondered if they will consider a reasonable ransom now.”

Jaime hissed. “That seems less likely than ever...”

“I know,” Jon said. He seemed distracted. There was something in the way he turned to squint at the wall.

“What?”

“Bran said...” Jon rolled his eyes as if he found himself ridiculous. “I always ask him if Sansa is alive. He always answers, ‘Yes,’ but this time—this time he said, _‘Oh_ yes.’”

Jaime stared at the man. “‘Oh...yes?’”

Jon put his hands on his hips, defensive. “Look—”

“No, I—” Jaime shrugged. “I know there’s significance in everything he says.”

Jon sighed.

Jaime sighed as well. “If I can do anything to help...”

Jon nodded and went downstairs.

That Bran knew things, but didn’t share them tended to make the skin on the hair on the back of Jaime’s neck stand on end. Tyrion said they had to trust that Bran acted for the best of them all, but he always drank when he said it.

When Jaime reentered his room Tyrion was staring hard at the fire.

“Did you get a full report on Brienne’s meals over the past fortnight?” Tyrion asked. “Porridge in the morning, roast pheasant with stewed carrots at midday, a supper of beef tongue and lemon—”

“Fuck off.” Jaime glared at Tyrion as he dragged a chair over to sit beside the hearth.

His brother had been less than happy to discover Brienne left their camp with Jon. _“You couldn’t leave her alone,”_ Tyrion had said the morning she flew away. Then he’d noticed Jaime’s empty hip and let out a vicious laugh. _“Never do anything by halves, do you?”_

At least she had Widow’s Wail. It offered some advantage if she did see combat before she was ready. A tiny hope, but he held it close.

He carried a new sword now. Good castle-forged steel. He trained with heavier swords anyway; just as well he wean himself away from the lighter, faster Valyrian steel. A long-overdue change.

“Sansa is dead,” Tyrion said.

_“What?”_ Jaime turned to look at his brother.

“That’s why Bran summons me.” Tyrion downed the last of the wine in his goblet and started to pour himself more.

Jaime stood and yanked the flagon from Tyrion’s hand. Wine never helped when his brother’s mood slipped toward despair. “She’s alive. Jon just asked him.”

Tyrion glared up at him and thunked his empty goblet hard against the table. “The king’s not going to tell Jon, because he knows it will devastate him. He’s going to tell me so I can deal with it.”

Jaime almost laughed. “You think Bran doesn’t know it would devastate you?”

Tyrion scoffed. “Of course not.”

He did laugh then. “Tyrion. You love her. _Everyone_ knows.”

“Laugh,” Tyrion sneered. “Go on. Mock the pathetic dwarf. Laugh whilst you sit surrounded by your women.”

“Yes.” Jaime gestured to the empty room. “Look at me. Surrounded.”

Tyrion stood and came around the table. He jerked the flagon out of Jaime’s hand so hard Dornish red sloshed all over the table. _“You._ You _stand_ there. Tall. Strong. When the whim strikes, you ride out and play the hero. Rescue a woman you don’t even want. Just so you can see the light of love in her eyes once more—”

“Careful.” Tyrion was in pain, Jaime knew that, but he went too far.

“—And still have the nerve to look _insulted_ when someone says so.” Tyrion glared at him for a moment, then sat again, poured himself some of the remaining wine.

“She’s the one you insult,” Jaime said. “You think she loved me? No. She loves a dead man. She’s not ashamed of _him._ She’d tell you all about him if you asked her, tell you how—” he paused for a wry smile at the annoying thought of Renly’s name on her lips, _“wonderful_ he was.”

Tyrion’s lips pulled up at the corners, more taunt than smile. “Jaime. She loves _you._ Everyone knows.”

Love? He thought of love. The things he did for it. There was the heavy kind of love, like he felt for Ro and Tyrion, the kind a man wore like armor despite the weight. Then there was the other kind of love.

“I could spend a year trying to explain to you what Brienne and I were to one another, but you still wouldn’t understand,” he said. _I don’t even understand._ “We were enemies, neither of us wanted it, but there was...the pull was—”

He cut himself off, pinched the bridge of his nose. There weren’t words. There were never words for it. “She burns so bright that I— It was— I had no right to touch her. No right to think that— I ruined it before it began, you understand? Something like that, something so— It could never last.”

Tyrion released his breath in a broken rush.

Jaime knew he’d said too much.

His brother’s face twitched in confusion as he stared at the floor, doubtless trying to choose which part to mock first. But Tyrion didn’t mock. Instead, he began to shake his head and slid off his chair. He walked to the door. His hand was on the latch before he turned back to look at Jaime.

“We chose our fates, you and I. And must live with them.” Tyrion stared silently at him for a moment, then turned to go.

“Tyrion, wait.” He didn’t want them to part like this. “Sansa is alive. We’ll get her back.”

There was nothing but sadness in Tyrion’s smile as he left.

The next morning, Jaime watched through his window as Jon’s dragon took flight. Perhaps Bran would say something to reassure Tyrion as he had done for Jon, but it was doubtful anything could help. Jaime understood only too well the creeping dread Tyrion faced and knew the only cure would be Sansa’s safe return.

“M’lord, I-I don’t know when she did it.”

He turned to find the nurse standing in the doorway of Rohanne’s room, her hands twisted tight in her apron.

Cold fear gripped him. “Did what?”

The woman gestured into the room. Rohanne was still sprawled on her bed, asleep, her fist curled against her cheek. And in that fist, two small severed golden plaits of disparate lengths.

_Lucky she didn’t cut herself,_ he thought. He started to laugh and closed the door so he wouldn’t wake her. His swordbelt hung from the bedpost, the dagger slightly ajar from its sheath. How had she managed to do it without waking him? He was a little impressed.

“M’lord?”

Jaime was still chuckling when he turned to the nurse. “It’s not your fault. Don’t worry.”

The woman still looked terrified. “But m’lord...Lady Cersei...”

His laughter died. “What has she said to you?”

“When we stayed at the castle, m’lord, she told me I do Lady Ro a disservice if I don’t teach her to be un _-unobtrusive.”_ The woman stumbled over the word. The sight of her fear set Jaime’s teeth on edge. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Lady Cersei says people will loathe her enough as it is; they’ll like her even less if she misbehaves.”

He’d heard enough. “If anyone asks, tell them I allowed her to cut her hair.”

A tear slipped down the woman’s cheek as she nodded and sighed in relief. “Yes, m’lord.”

He went to his saddlebag and took out a few silvers; he pressed them into her hand. “Take the day. Go. Do as you please. I’ll keep her with me.”

The woman looked at the coins and curtseyed before she fled the room. She and her family had served his for generations. Her father and brother had worked in the stables at Casterly Rock. He could only imagine the stories she’d heard about Cersei to put such fear in her.

He took Rohanne with him that morning and let her perch in front of his saddle as he rode the perimeter of the walls to check progress on the repairs. She shook her short, uneven curls happily each time they greeted someone she knew.

As evening fell he rode toward the water to talk to the harbormaster. He arrived just as Cersei and the red priestesses walked away from the docks surrounded by their guards, headed back toward the castle. His sister didn’t see him, but he watched her close.

After the harbormaster gave his report, Jaime took Rohanne’s hand and turned toward his horse, but she pulled him out onto one of the docks.

From the small pouch on her swordbelt, she produced her two plaits of hair and held them up to show him. “They have to go in the water.”

“Oh?”

She took one plait and flung it into the bay. A wave swept it under the dock.

_“Vanty,”_ she said.

He chuckled. Her memory was terrifying.

“Van _-i-_ ty,” he corrected.

“Van _-i-_ ty,” she repeated as she flung the second plait. It joined the other under the dock. She fell to her knees and looked over the edge to see where her hair had gone.

“Do you know what vanity means?” He dropped to one knee to grab the back of her tunic, afraid she might fall in.

“No.” She watched the water under the dock. “What?”

“Vanity means...it means to be over-concerned about how you look. Too worried about looking good for other people.”

“Oh.” She scooted back to her knees and looked up at him. Her brow crinkled in concentration. “Do I have vanity?”

Jaime sighed. He had been raised to be vain. And Cersei...

He reached out and patted Ro’s shorn golden locks; he was forever out of his depth with her. “Lady Brienne cut her hair because she was going to war. She will not have time to care for long hair. So she thought the only reason to keep it would be vanity.”

The memory of Brienne’s face that day hit him like a kick to the chest. The almost frantic determination in her eyes as she ran the blade through her hair had stunned him. For all that he’d screeched at Tyrion that he knew her best, that was a side of her he hadn’t fully seen or understood before. There had been something about the way she took hold of the plait, too, this thing that had been part of her, and simply cast it away into the stream without a second thought that bit into the core of him.

Because she’d cast him away.

_Wasn’t that what I wanted?_

There was no going back once he left Winterfell, he’d known that. Not when he left her alone to explain to Sansa and Bran, and whoever else, that she’d pledged her honor on a man who had betrayed them all and gone back to Cersei.

He’d wanted her to let him go; wanted her to know he wasn’t worth worry or regret. But he hadn’t expected to survive King’s Landing. He hadn’t expected to live to see the way she eliminated every trace of him from her life.

How had Tyrion put it? _I chose my fate. I must live with my choices._

The unexpected final result of all his choices stared up at him.

“I have a war,” Rohanne said. She touched her cheek as if she was explaining something to him. “See? A dragon kissed me. I don’t need hair.”

“I see.” He smiled. “Wear your hair as you choose. _Well,_ you still have to let Nurse comb it for you every day. And only Nurse can cut it from now on _—no more daggers.”_

She grinned at him. “I’m hungry.”

He stood, and pulled her to her feet. “Yes, time for supper.”

At the inn, he pulled Tyrion’s steward aside and bade the man uncover Cersei’s dealings at the harbor.

Jon and Tyrion returned five days later. They wandered into the common room of the inn at dusk. Jaime’s words of welcome withered with his smile. They looked grim, the pair of them.

_Oh no._

He sent Rohanne with her nurse to play with the innkeep’s boy in the kitchens, before he followed Jon and Tyrion upstairs to Tyrion’s room.

“Sansa?” he asked them as soon as the door was shut.

Jon shook his head as he sat. “Bran.”

_“Bran?”_

“They tried to kill him last night,” Tyrion said. “With black magic.”

“Red God magic,” Jon said. “A shadow. Black smoke.”

“Renly,” Jaime said. “Brienne said it was a shadow that killed him. A shadow of Stannis.”

Jon and Tyrion glanced at one another.

“Bran mentioned something about that,” Tyrion said.

“How did he stop it?” Jaime asked.

“Darkness,” Jon said softly. “He said shadows need light.”

Daenerys had asked for the heads of Bran, Jon, Tyrion, and Cersei. If she and her red priestesses tried to assassinate Bran, then...

Jaime grimaced. “What about the rest of you?”

Tyrion’s laugh was bitter. “Sleep in darkened rooms?”

Jaime went to the door and called down the stairs for one of his squires. He gave orders that Cersei should be brought from the castle, alone, attended by half a dozen guards.

“The guards aren’t going to help,” Jon said as he sat beside the fire and stared into it. Tyrion poured them both a goblet of wine.

“Cersei’s been sending messages,” Jaime said. He’d meant to tell Tyrion later when they were alone, to decide together how to deal with her, but he had no choice but to reveal it now. “I saw her at the harbor. Made inquiries. Messages for people in the Free Cities. Essos.”

Tyrion grunted as he sat in a chair beside the fire. “She had trade contacts in several ports. Perhaps...”

His brother’s tone was light, but he met Jaime’s gaze with fierce eyes, where Jon couldn’t see.

Jaime shrugged and gave Tyrion a look. He didn’t intend to withhold anything from their allies, but he didn’t want Jon to have reason to suspect Cersei either. Not until he knew more. Their parole rested solely on Tyrion’s promise to keep them in line and the ominous suggestion that the crown could invite Rohanne to be fostered in King’s Landing at any time.

Cersei arrived in a gown of green with a light linen cloak about her shoulders. Her hair was loose, like spun gold in the firelight. She looked them each over with calculating eyes as she entered the room.

Jon moved another chair near the fire beside Tyrion and she took it with a slight nod of thanks. Jaime sat on Tyrion’s bed.

“Did you summon me for a funeral?” she asked as she glanced around at their frowns. She tried for nonchalance, but her face was full of guarded curiosity. If she already knew what they were about to tell her she hid it well.

Tyrion drew a deep breath. “There’s been an attempt on the life of the King. Magic. Sent by a servant of the Red God, we are given to understand.”

She blinked slowly and tilted her chin to the side as she assessed Tyrion. “What a... _pity.”_

Jon smothered a snort and Jaime bit back a smile.

She showed a bit too much joy to be a conspirator, he thought.

“Daenerys demanded all of your heads along with the king’s in her ransom demand for Sansa,” Jaime said. “I thought you would wish to know, in case one of you is next.”

“Can anything be done to stop this,” Cersei paused and blinked slowly, _“magic?”_

“Complete darkness,” Tyrion said.

“And how is that to be achieved?” she snapped.

Tyrion raised his brows, gave a small sardonic shrug.

“Well.” She smiled, her eyes narrow as she looked at them; her voice ice. Her gaze honed in on each of them in turn. “Do any men in the realm have a better reputation for protecting their women than you three? I’m sure I have nothing to fear.”

Jon sucked in a breath, shook his head, and left without a word. The door closed hard behind him.

Cersei’s chuckle was low and merciless. Her eyes glinted.

“You always overestimate your position,” Tyrion warned her, his voice raw.

“That’s a family trait,” she said.

“It was certainly a weakness of Father’s.” Tyrion matched her tone, her menace.

She sneered at him. “I suppose you think you taught him a lesson?”

“He didn’t need lessons when I was through with him.”

Cersei smiled with all her teeth. “And your whore? What did she need when you were through with her?”

“Enough, Cersei.” Jaime walked to the hearth, stood between them. She’d mostly held her tongue with Tyrion since they returned from Lys. The three of them had existed in a necessary state of truce. Now he could feel it crumbling around them.

“And you think he doesn’t protect you,” Tyrion said as he glanced up at Jaime. “He’s the only reason Daenerys doesn’t have you already.”

“And the only reason she doesn’t have _you,_ from what I hear,” Cersei said.

Cersei seemed to know what happened behind closed doors, including the contents of Daenerys’s ransom demand. Tyrion had tried to ferret out her spy in Riverrun but had found nothing.

“You two ought to save your anger for Daenerys,” Jaime said. “We need to think of a way to protect you both.”

“No one’s asking _you_ to think.” Cersei sat back hard in her chair.

Jaime laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. They may as well have been children again.

Tyrion stood. “Sweet sister, I suggest you go back to the castle and make yourself at home in Lord Mooton’s dungeons. Pray he’s not the sort of lord who put in windows for the comfort of his prisoners. I never knew darkness like I found when you threw me into the Black Cells.”

“You think I know nothing of dungeons?” she snarled.

Tyrion glanced briefly up at Jaime, then stared at her. “I think you rarely feel the full weight of your folly.”

Tyrion left then, as Jon had.

“You know he’s all that stands between us and destruction,” Jaime told her. “He saved us more than once—”

“He saved you,” she said. She sounded bitter now. “He’s done nothing for me. Nothing but see to it I lost everything. Mother, Father, the children. The seven kingdoms. Even the Rock is gone now.”

Jaime closed his eyes. “We’re all still alive. Rohanne is alive. That’s what matters.”

“You never understood what matters.”

“Neither did you,” he said. He walked away from her then, sat on Tyrion’s bed again across the room.

“I passed the kitchens on my way in. I saw my child playing there, rolling on the floor like the whelp of some scullery maid. Why has her hair been cut short like that great cow of yours?”

He made himself take a deep breath, forced himself not to take the bait about Brienne. “She wanted it short.”

“She’s an infant. You tell her what she wants.”

_“I_ wanted it short, then.”

“Short? Better to reveal her poor ruined face to all who look upon her? Have you no pity? She will not be adored and indulged by everyone she meets like we were as children, Jaime.”

He tasted bile. How could she look at Rohanne’s sweet little face and call it ruined?

“Clearly we were _over_ indulged,” he said. He made an attempt to keep his voice free of inflection. It was no good to argue with her, all it did was make her worse.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “You spoil her. You’re raising her to be entitled, not to know her place. Like Tyrion. She must learn to be docile and compliant. Do you want everyone who meets her to resent her rather than pity her as they ought?”

He stood and walked to the window. He had to face away from her. Rohanne wasn’t born docile and compliant—she was fierce, fearless. “She’s a lion, not a mouse. She’s Tyrion’s heir. Would you have the Lady of Casterly Rock be meek?”

“If he somehow regains it, Tyrion will never let her have the Rock,” Cersei said. “He won’t suffer a child of my blood to—”

“He loves her. He loved Myrcella and Tommen too. You let your prejudice blind you.”

Cersei scoffed. “Even if that were true, you know he will eventually sire a few brats on some witless highborn girl. Then what will become of my daughter?”

“Whatever she wishes,” Jaime said.

Her eyes darkened from scornful to vicious. “You know _nothing_ about what becomes of little girls. You don’t know how to protect them; you proved that with Myrcella. All you’ve ever done for your children is fail them.”

He whirled on her. In his mind, he saw the light die in Myrcella’s eyes for the thousandth time, watched Joffrey’s face turn purple as he struggled for breath, remembered Tommen’s broken body discarded in a crypt below the rubble of the Great Sept. She was right. He’d failed them all. But he wasn’t alone.

“As have you.”

Her nostrils flared as she stood; her eyes were all wildfire—green and bright, beautiful, ready to burn him alive. “If it weren’t for you, I would still have seven kingdoms.”

His laugh was hollow. “One moment I’m completely worthless to you and the next I’m powerful enough to hold the iron throne. Which is it?”

“There is no iron throne now,” she spat.

She collected herself and walked toward the door; gave him her almost-smile again, as she prepared to gut him. Her gaze slid to his false hand, the dark Valyrian steel Tyrion had gifted him. “I once said you were worth a thousand Robert Baratheons, but that was when you were whole. You’re less than half a man now. I’d have been better off to keep him.”

He was well armored against her blows by now, but they still stung a bit.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? What I’ve given up to keep you safe?”

“Not enough,” she said. Then she left.

His breath raged out as she closed the door behind her. He turned back to the window and waited. She exited the inn with her guard and shot a disdainful look up at him before she pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and walked back toward the castle.

He’d known better than to fight with her; he’d given up trying years ago. She was frightened and fear always made her ruthless. And he’d been weak, foolish. He went down to the common room and found one of his squires, then sent the lad to tell the castellan to follow her orders precisely—to help her darken a room, possibly in the dungeons.

He knew he couldn’t keep her safe from the Red God’s magic, but he’d wanted her to know the danger she faced. He owed her that much.

Tyrion was in the kitchen swigging ale with the innkeep’s wife. Rohanne played on the floor with the woman’s son and a pile of plump, fluffy puppies. Dirt smeared his daughter’s face and clothes, and somehow bread flour was dusted white over her curls. When she looked up at him, her grin was bright enough to rival the sun.

“I mean to bathe her tonight, m’lord,” her nurse said quietly from the corner.

Rohanne’s face fell into a pout.

“Let her play a bit more,” he said.

She smiled up at him again then.

He looked pointedly at his brother. “Tyrion?”

“I thank you for the fine drink and company, my lady,” Tyrion said to the innkeep’s bemused wife; he stood to follow Jaime out of the room.

As he walked out the door, Jaime saw Rohanne collapse into giggles on the floor as a puppy licked her face.

They climbed the steps back to Tyrion’s room.

Tyrion sighed. “She reminds me of Tommen when she’s like that.”

“Not tonight, Tyrion. I beg you.” Jaime paused, rested his hand against the wall. The memory of Tommen’s gentle, boyish face was like a clamp on his throat.

“Ah,” Tyrion said as he walked up the stair past Jaime. “I thought our sweet sister looked like she’d just committed murder when she stormed out.”

Jaime forced himself to follow Tyrion into the room and slumped into the chair Cersei had vacated.

“You did your best,” Tyrion said. “There’s little you can do to protect her from this.”

“You don’t know that,” Jaime said. “You need to join her. Go to the dungeons. Stay there once night falls. If this thing went for Bran at night and another one killed Renly at night, perhaps it cannot touch you in daylight.”

Tyrion chuckled. “How can that be when Bran said only the dark can kill it?”

“I don’t—”

“I chose my fate long ago,” Tyrion said. “I should have died immediately following the fall of King’s Landing. I talked my way out of it, but if Daenerys wants to take her due, she will have it.”

Jaime took in Tyrion’s bleak expression. This was his despair over Sansa talking, made worse with Cersei’s swipe about Shae. “Don’t be stupid, Tyrion.”

“Tell me about Cersei’s messages from the docks. How many days ago?”

“The day you left,” Jaime said. He swallowed before the next bit, almost afraid to see what would be in Tyrion’s eyes. “The priestesses were with her.”

“Gods.”

“Why would she conspire with Daenerys, though?”

Tyrion snorted. “The greater question is why Daenerys would conspire with Cersei. But the coincidence of Bran being attacked by the Red God’s magic is...”

“But you saw her face when she heard. She didn’t know.”

“True, but it’s possible she didn’t know the precise plan,” Tyrion offered.

That was possible. “She was terrified, though.”

“She was,” Tyrion agreed. “She _does_ have contacts in a dozen ports. There is a chance she’s contacting people about trade, or coin. Perhaps she’s merely looking for a place to hide.”

“What do we tell Jon?” Jaime asked. There were harmless explanations for what she was about and there were sinister ones.

“You told him enough,” Tyrion said. “He plays the halfwit at times but, believe me, he heard you. Besides, Bran will know if she’s done anything truly terrible. I will leave it to him.”

Tyrion meant he would let her face the consequences if she’d joined Daenerys. Jaime felt a slight prick of the old dread but said nothing.

“We need an excuse to send the priestesses to King’s Landing,” Jaime said. He stood to go. “And we’ll have to watch her close.”

“I’ll see to it in the morning,” Tyrion said. “Bran wants us to remain here for a time, by the way.”

“How long?”

“Well.” Tyrion went to his sideboard and poured himself a goblet of wine. “We are supposed to ride away thirty-four days from now.”

Jaime had long since learned to simply follow Bran’s bizarre, oddly specific orders and not to question them. When Bran sent them word to storm Maidenpool, they did. But this was a new sort of strange.

Jaime pinched the bridge of his nose. “How am I supposed to keep the men fed for so long without moving?”

Tyrion shrugged. “Teach them to fish?”

“Helpful.” Jaime reached for the door.

“You didn’t ask our destination after the thirty-fourth day, Jaime.”

“Where?”

“Harrenhal.”

“Seven hells.” _Bloody Harrenhal._

Jaime left the room and started to climb the steps to his own room, but stopped and turned back. He knocked softly on Jon’s door.

Jon cracked the door open and squinted at him.

“You leave in the morning?” Jaime asked.

“Yes.”

“For Riverrun?”

Jon looked him over, groaned, and opened the door.

Once inside, Jaime walked to the fireplace and rested his elbow on the mantel. “Brienne—”

“Jaime.” Jon’s brow was heavy as he shook his head slowly. “I like you. Despite...everything. My father’s like to spin in his grave to hear me say it, but I know you’re a decent man. You love your family. I understand you.”

“Fine, but—”

“But—” Jon cut in, “Brienne was Sansa’s sworn sword. I suppose she was mine as well. She leads our army now. My loyalty is to her.”

“I’m not asking you to be disloyal to her,” Jaime said. His chest was tight. Would everyone assume the worst of him?

“I know. And I know you’re concerned for her. But I can’t keep telling you tales about her. It doesn’t seem right.”

“Right?” Jaime swallowed. “She’s alone.”

“So am I.” Jon’s laugh was dry. “So are most of us. She can take care of herself. That’s what she’s done since...that’s what she’s done.”

Jaime looked at the floor. He thought of her blonde plait tripping over the stones in the stream. “I know.”

“Good,” Jon said. “She’s going to send the sword back.”

_No._

“Delay her,” Jaime said. He stared hard at Jon; gestured at the Mormont Valyrian steel sword hanging from a hook on the wall. “You know the difference it makes. Delay her until she’s stronger. Make her see reason.”

“Reason. That’s...” Jon smiled. “You know, we all thought you were dead after King’s Landing fell.”

Jaime closed his eyes. _Please, gods, not this again._ He felt worse every time he heard it.

“Brienne mourned me. I know.”

Jon’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Perhaps. I suppose she did. I don’t know. I was imprisoned by the time she and Sansa arrived in King’s Landing. Never saw her until she and Sansa came to visit us at the Wall sometime later.”

_Us?_

“It was Tyrion,” Jon said. “He was imprisoned after King’s Landing fell. For freeing you. For treason.”

Jaime knew that part. He’d tried to make it up to his brother a thousand ways, but always fell short. “Yes,” he said, wishing his voice didn’t sound so feeble.

Jon nodded. “I went to see him after Dany had him arrested. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do for him, any...last request I could fulfill.”

He knew about this too. Tyrion tended to speak of it when he would return to the Rock from King’s Landing, on the nights he got unspeakably drunk. _“Jon Snow and I both killed Daenerys,”_ Tyrion would say. _“Make no mistake. We did it together, the pair of us.”_

“Tyrion was—he was persuasive.” Jon looked up at him. “Well, you know your brother. He made the argument that Daenerys had to die plain enough that even I understood it.”

Jaime nodded.

Jon nodded back. “I loved her. I would have died for her. Tyrion knew that. Knew he asked the impossible of me. He told me love was more powerful than reason. ‘We all know that,’ he said. ‘Look at my brother.’”

Every muscle in Jaime’s body turned to stone.

“You were the example, Jaime. The example of what could become of my family, my loved ones, if I let love prevail over reason.”

Tyrion had never mentioned that part, not even deep in his cups.

“Your love won out over reason,” Jon said, “but somehow you survived anyway. Mayhaps that made you feel invincible, I don’t know.”

“Anything but,” Jaime whispered.

Jon gave him a sad smile. “I know what you did to get Brienne back—I know what you were _willing_ to do. There wasn’t any reason in it, but...”

Jaime’s chest felt tight.

“But it’s done now,” Jon said. “You rescued her. That’s all you can do.”

Jaime couldn’t look at the man. He grunted in acknowledgment, forced himself to nod, and started for the door. He stopped himself before he left. Made himself turn back to look at Jon.

“I’m sorry for what Cersei said to you,” Jaime said. “I know the choice you faced. I know you saved lives when you made it. You’re a better man than I.”

Jon scoffed. “No. I’m not. I know what it is to face a moment where every choice is wrong.”

Jaime inclined his head toward Jon, a hint of a bow, then left.

That night he lay sleepless in his bed, drowning in Brienne. Every memory he’d kept locked away since Winterfell came screaming to the fore of his thoughts.

When she stumbled into his life all those years ago, he wanted nothing more than to be rid of her. He hated her. Or tried to, anyway. She was difficult to hate, so quiet and stubborn and full of conviction. Determined to do what was right. Captivating in the oddest way. It was lust, he could admit that now, he’d wanted her, but there was so much more to it than that. Still, he’d have gladly let her go then—or so he told himself.

He didn’t know when he began to seek out her eyes every time someone spoke to them. Didn’t know when his heart had begun to race every time she reentered his sight after they had been parted. Had it been at Harrenhal? Before? After? Anytime they were in the same place, the same room, his skin lit with awareness of her.

Then there was Winterfell, where everything they had been to each other slid so perfectly into place. They fell into bed, into one another. Even as his guilt over Cersei ate at him, he hadn’t been able to stop.

Jon and Tyrion said he needed to let her go. He needed to take his memories of her and hide them in the darkest corners of his mind again. He didn’t know how to do it, was all. He wasn’t sure how he’d done it the first time, save that the effort to reach Cersei had consumed him.

So he did his best to keep himself occupied again, which was easy enough to do in the midst of war. He worked from dawn until late into the night and the days wore on. He and his men took advantage of the fine spring weather to rebuild the town walls and the harbor, to provision themselves and repair armor and weapons. And he only let himself think about Brienne at night, when he was exhausted and too weak to fight it.

They stayed in Maidenpool as long as Bran ordered and left on the thirty-fourth morning. Despite their destination, Jaime was relieved to turn his horse’s head west, to leave the town behind. It seemed Tyrion was too, despite his hatred of long days in the saddle.

Cersei rode at the rear of the war host. She’d looked dour since her priestesses had been sent away. He hadn’t spoken to her since the night Tyrion returned from King’s Landing. She never slept in the dungeons once. He wondered if perhaps it was to spite him.

Rohanne couldn’t have been happier. They departed for Harrenhal on her fourth nameday. When she walked into the innyard at sunrise, Jaime led her gift out of the stable. A little grey pony. He had the pony tied to his saddle so he could lead it as they went. Rohanne rode with him during the journey, and she would look back and coo and blow kisses at her new pony.

“I love him,” she told Jaime.

“I know,” he said as he kissed the top of her head. “I know.”

That evening they sat at a campfire with Tyrion and his bannermen. The aroma of rabbit roasting on an open spit was more mouthwatering than Jaime ever remembered.

After they ate, Ro grinned when her lord uncle produced a delicate wooden box full of small cheesecloth-wrapped sweet cakes. Some of the servants had picked wild strawberries from a field they passed that day, and Tyrion sent Jaime’s squires to procure some cream from a nearby farmhouse to top the cakes along with the berries.

While they waited for the squires to return, he and Tyrion told Rohanne stories about Lann the Clever to hold her attention and keep her awake. They laughed over her head as they invented ever more ridiculous twists in the tale to keep her entertained.

Jaime laughed at the nurse when the woman could scarce keep her eyes open. “Go to bed,” he said. “I’ll bring her with me later.” The woman smiled and scampered off.

The squires finally returned, and they feasted. Jaime wondered if fresh cream had ever been richer, or strawberries more sweet and tart. Tyrion smiled at him, warm and carefree in a way Jaime hadn’t seen since the war began and Sansa was captured. Rohanne fell asleep and drooled on his right shoulder, and when he rose to carry her to bed his heart felt lighter than it had in a year.

His tent was dark and silent. It took him a moment to recognize the smell of blood as he walked toward the corner where Rohanne slept. The nurse lay curled on her side beside her cot, her fingers ineffectually fallen away from where they’d tried to stanch the flow of blood from her slit throat.

Jaime peered into the shadows of the tent as he backed out toward the entrance. With a jerk of his head he beckoned Ro’s guards to follow him back to the campfire. He held his daughter tight, desperate not to wake her.

The search through the camp was swift. Cersei was missing. He and Tyrion entered her pavilion and found it quiet and tidy, save for the neat slice that cut through the canvas at the back. Her servants had been sent out on arduous tasks and returned confused to find her gone. Her guards still stood outside the entrance, dumbfounded that anything was amiss.

He stood in the middle of her tent and turned slowly in a circle. Took in her cot, the crates and chests, the rugs she kept on the ground. Tyrion opened her cedar chests. Some had been emptied, or partially so, but not sacked. They’d been unpacked.

Tyrion looked at him.

Jaime nodded. Slow. He might be the stupidest Lannister, but he understood. Cersei had left.

And had meant to take Rohanne with her.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Brienne wiped the sweat out of her eyes, then swung the practice sword hard for Tormund’s leg. As they fought, their boots ground the clover and cornflowers and chive of the field until a pungent aroma wafted around them as they pummeled one another in the early evening sun. It was good to accustom herself to the uneven terrain rather than the safe, level surface of a practice yard.

Tormund wielded a tourney sword with the same brutality he did a battle axe, but that was what she needed. Someone who could spar like they meant to kill her, who wouldn’t hold back for fear of her health. Training with the squires had been useless to her for weeks.

A shadow fell dark over them, and they both paused to look up. The deep rippled grey scales of Robb’s underbelly slid past.

“He found us,” Tormund said with a laugh.

Jon told her he became easily lost if he didn’t follow roads as he flew, so she’d stuck close to the River Road in hopes he could track them after his return to Riverrun.

King Bran sent orders whilst Jon was with the men of the Reach at Saltpans. They were to go west and confront a force of Targaryen soldiers who held the Golden Tooth and were ranging farther out of the western hills into the riverlands by the day. They’d left the Red Fork behind two days before and she would welcome Jon’s scouting reports from further west.

Brienne greeted Jon with a wave as she and Tormund walked back into camp. She invited him to join her for supper in her tent.

Before she departed Riverrun, Lady Roslin gave her an old Stark pavilion that had been left behind before the Red Wedding. The first night it was raised, Brienne nearly broke into tears as she set her lantern down on the small table and looked around at the brown sailcloth walls. It was Lady Catelyn’s tent.

Jon entered her pavilion at sunset as her aids were leaving, Tormund close at his shoulder. She half rolled her eyes at Jon and he gave her a small contrite grin.

Tormund had begun to look at her again, to stare, as if she were a particularly choice cut of bacon. He made her feel as if she’d fallen back into the past, to those frenetic days after she learned Jaime was alive.

She and Sansa stayed in King’s Landing after Tyrion sailed for Lys. Relieved, angry, heartsick, she’d decided to do what everyone else in Westeros was doing and rebuild. With the war finally finished, she owed it to her father and her house to marry and produce an heir. She knew she’d never love another man, but she’d thought perhaps she could share a bed and a life with someone else.

More than one man approached Sansa for Brienne’s hand. In those days, her political importance was greatly exaggerated because she’d been given a place on the Great Council and was known to be close to the Starks. Sansa would bemusedly report each offer to her and ask how to respond.

Hyle Hunt knew Brienne well enough to approach her directly. He’d sauntered up to her outside the Red Keep one day and started a lighthearted conversation as if he thought she’d forgotten the way his laughter sounded from across her father’s ballroom. She’d rolled her eyes and brushed him off, but he’d half-apologized and tried to joke with her. She had liked him once, before the ball, and as the younger son of a landed knight from the Reach, he said he would gladly live out his days on Tarth. So eventually she let him court her. Or court Tarth, anyway.

He met her in the practice yard and sat with her at meals. And she began to think perhaps she should forgive the cruelty he showed her in their youth. When he finally pulled her into a darkened corner to _seduce_ her with a chaste kiss, she grabbed his doublet and leaned into him, because she needed to know if it would feel the same with someone else. His brown eyes lit with the first genuine interest he’d ever shown her, but the moment he opened his mouth over hers and touched her lips with his tongue, she’d pushed him away. It hadn’t been awful, but she felt nothing—no heat, no spark.

She and Sansa visited Jon several months later. She’d stood atop the Wall one night with Tormund, looking out at the wild land beyond with the stars bright above. He’d look at her like he wanted her, as Hyle never had, so she kissed him—thought perhaps that was what was missing. He had been surprisingly gentle. Too gentle, perhaps. His beard abraded her skin and his hand felt wrong on the back of her thigh. After the third kiss she’d simply said no, and he had nodded and smiled sadly at her.

She gave up all hope of a husband after that night, considered herself lucky that she knew what happened in the marriage bed, knew what it was to want a man so much that even the memory of his touch could still scald her, and knew she had no interest in anything less.

However, it was impossible to forget you’d kissed someone once you’d kissed them. Tormund clearly hadn’t forgot, given the way he stared at her from across the table now. She’d mostly managed to avoid him at Riverrun. They got on well enough with the work of soldiering, but when that was done...even sharing a meal with him was awkward. She wished he understood she had no interest in him, but realized she would have to make it plain again. The thought of the galling conversation she’d have to have with him was enough to make her groan.

Was this how Jaime felt when she was in his camp? _Am I his Tormund?_ The thought made her stomach lurch. She scarce managed to swallow the bite of lamb in her mouth. He must have been relieved to see her go. Perhaps he and Cersei spoke about it—laughed about it—how they were free of Brienne of Tarth again. At last. _Gods._

“Are you choking?” Tormund asked her.

She jerked her head up to look at him; cleared her throat. “No. _No.”_

They ate while Jon shared the news he brought from Bronn and the men of the Reach and elsewhere. Bronn had secured both sides of the Trident from Lord Harroway’s Town to Saltpans. Jaime and Tyrion had retaken Maidenpool and now held Harrenhal. _He’s still alive, at least,_ she thought.

The war continued in a series of wins and losses that seemed meaningless while the dragonriders circled one another refusing to engage.

“If we can clean things up along the western hills,” Jon said, “we will at least hold all of the riverlands again.”

“Good,” Tormund said as he picked up a lamb chop and pointed it at Jon. “At least until Daenerys comes with her dragon and—” He made a whistling sound as he used the lamb chop to imitate a dragon flying and then made a roaring sound as he pretended to breathe fire all over Jon’s plate.

“Yes,” Jon said with a slow blink. “Until then.”

“Jon.”

They looked up to see a small woman standing at the entrance of the tent. Her hair was longer than when Brienne had seen her last, but otherwise, she was much the same.

_“Arya.”_ Jon wrapped his sister in a tight embrace.

A bearded man peered in the entrance of the tent behind Arya.

Brienne gasped. “My lord?”

He looked thin and unkempt, and his beard was overgrown, but she would have known Gendry Baratheon anywhere.

“Look, it’s my betrothed,” Gendry said as he walked in and winked at Brienne.

Brienne snorted.

Arya’s eyes slid slowly his way. “Betrothed?”

Gendry smiled but didn’t look at Arya. “Unless she married Lord Snow over there. Did you? Marry Lord Snow?”

“What do you think?” Brienne frowned at him.

“It’s the only way I’ll ever have a child taller than Sansa,” Jon said, “but the lady doesn’t seem interested.”

Brienne laughed.

“What is this?” Tormund asked. “You are betrothed? To the blacksmith? Or to Jon?”

She rolled her eyes. “Neither.”

One of Jon’s retainers brought fresh plates of food for Arya and Gendry. They were brief as they told their tale. Arya had rescued Gendry from a dungeon in the crownlands, then they’d traveled to the Vale and finally come in search of Jon.

“Why did you go to the Vale? Why come to me and not go to your uncle at Riverrun?” Jon asked.

Arya cringed. “My uncle can’t help me.”

“Help you?” Brienne asked.

“I’ve seen Sansa,” Arya said as she tore a crust of bread in half.

“That’s why we went to the Vale. She saved me in the crownlands just to haul me to the heart of Arryn lands,” Gendry said.

Arya gave him a cutting glance. “You’re safe, aren’t you?”

“Sansa?” Jon prompted.

“She’s in the Eyrie,” Arya said. “I can get to her, but I can’t get her out. They’d find us before I could take her down on foot.”

Brienne looked at Jon.

“Heard you have a dragon,” Arya said with a smirk at her brother.

He closed his eyes and nodded. “We can fly there. If you can get her out onto the walls—”

“I can,” Arya said.

Jon smiled. “We can leave in the morning.”

“Good,” Arya said. “I’m sick of walking. And I always wanted to ride one of those things.”

“Me too,” Gendry said.

“You’re staying here,” Arya told him. She glanced at Brienne. “You been ill?”

“In a sense. I’m better now.” When last she’d looked in a mirror, Brienne thought her looks had improved. But clearly she didn’t yet look herself.

“Good,” Arya said. “We should have one more sword.”

Brienne nodded. “Mine.”

“Brienne.” Jon sounded hesitant. “Are you sure—”

“Yes,” Brienne said. “I’m ready.”

They planned as Arya and Gendry ate. Brienne watched Jon smile sadly at his little sister. There would be no questions about where Arya had gone or why she’d returned, Brienne knew that from the way Sansa and Jon treated their sister’s departure from Westeros. They dealt with Arya’s absence by pretending she’d only walked into another room for a moment and was expected back shortly.

In truth, Brienne had wondered if Arya would ever be seen again.

Later that night, Brienne sat alone at her table with lantern and parchment. In hopes her island could be reclaimed, she wrote an addendum to the will that had been drawn up on Tarth as soon as she inherited.

The title of Evenstar would pass to a distant cousin she’d never met. After her father died, Brienne had exchanged letters with her cousin, widow of a landed knight. They had talked of the woman traveling to Tarth with her young daughters, but there had been no urgency. Matters of inheritance had seemed distant at the time. She could do little with the properties that passed with the lordship of Evenfall, but she listed some coin and items to go to faithful servants and Podrick Payne in the event Tarth was recovered.

Then she wrote Pod a note.

_Podrick, it has been my honor to know you and to knight you. You were more brother than squire to me. I am proud of the man you have become. A knight of the Kingsguard. Oathkeeper will pass into your hands. I know you will wield it justly. Upon your death, it is my wish that you return the sword to Jaime Lannister or his ~~heirs~~ —_

Brienne drew a sharp breath.

_—daughter Rohanne Lannister or her heirs, unless there is someone important in your life you wish to bestow it upon. Though that seems unlikely as you have vowed to father no children._

She underlined the “father no children” bit as she always worried his promiscuousness would get him into trouble with the Kingsguard. Next, she wrote detailed instructions about where to find the sword.

She wrote a note to her cousin and explained that she would leave her signet ring and her father’s sword with Lord Gendry. _Both belong with the Evenstar,_ she wrote. Then she started a note to her steward with instructions about teaching her cousin the inner-workings of the marble quarries.

The small stack of folded correspondence sat before her on the table. Four notes. That was the entire business of her life neatly concluded. She would hand them all to Gendry in the morning with a request that he see them all delivered should she fall in the attempt to save Queen Sansa.

From around her neck, she drew off the cord with her seal. She untied it and released the ring; set it atop the letters. For some reason, she tied the empty cord back around her neck once more.

She looked up at Widow’s Wail, its belt looped triple over the back of the chair opposite her. The past weeks had been fraught as she did the work of commanding the northern forces and tried to recover her strength. When she’d returned to Tarth she found she could go days at a time without thinking about Jaime. It had been difficult to return to that pattern after he rescued her, to try to make him simply a distant ache in her soul again.

She’d learned to live with the jagged wound he left when he tore himself out of her life, but it hadn’t been easy. He’d never loved her as she did him, but she knew guilt must have driven him to try to ransom her, to offer...to offer so much for her.

She placed a fresh sheet of parchment on the table. She thought of the thousand things she could never say to Jaime’s face. Then she thought of the things she might say if she knew she’d be dead before he read them.

He hated to read, and she was no poet, but she began to write.


	6. Chapter 6

Night fell fast in the Mountains of the Moon, murky, laden with the scent of rain and peat. Heavy clouds clung to the top of the Eyrie like chimney smoke. Even in the dark, the Arryn stronghold commanded respect from its precarious perch; beautiful, untouchable, clad in weathered Tarth marble.

Arya grasped one of the ropes hanging from the saddle and slid down off Robb’s shoulder onto the domed roof of one of the uppermost towers, then disappeared into a trapdoor nestled amongst the slate shingles.

Robb’s great wings flapped thrice, and the sound seemed so loud to Brienne that she didn’t know how the whole castle hadn’t roused. She half feared his stench alone would give them away. But the Eyrie stayed dark as they drifted upward. Robb slowly circled as they watched through the soupy haze for Arya’s signal. Water beaded in tiny droplets on her cheeks, then began to fall in a soft drizzle.

Jon had warned them that the dragon didn’t like to fly in the rain.

She didn’t know how long they circled. It may have been minutes, or it may have been hours, but she felt Jon tense just as she heard a shout.

“Go,” she whispered in Jon’s ear. He lowered Robb close to the tower.

The fibers of the hempen rope dug into her hands as she slid too quickly down the dragon’s rain-damp scales, weighted by her armor. She nearly missed the tower, but she got her hands on the edge of the roof and scrabbled over the edge.

Shouts echoed below. Steel clanged against steel.

Her plate and mail creaked as she dropped through the trapdoor and down the ladder to a torchlit landing. Already she felt tired and weak.

 _“You’ll do Sansa no good if you don’t recover your strength before you try a rescue,”_ Jaime had said.

_He was right._

She had no time to castigate herself as she followed the narrow, winding stair down and found them. They were slumped together; the bodies of four men-at-arms and a knight were strewn on the steps below them.

 _“Brienne?”_ Sansa looked up, her eyes unfocused. A crossbow bolt protruded from her thigh. Arya’s eyes were closed; she didn’t move. Two more bolts thunked into the wall further down the stair.

Blood poured from Arya as Brienne moved her.

“My lady,” Brienne said, quiet and firm as she hooked her arm under Sansa’s shoulders and dragged her to her feet. “You must stand and walk. Even if your leg tears to shreds under you.”

Sansa leaned against the wall unsteadily, her face a rictus of pain, but she nodded in assent.

Brienne threw Arya over one shoulder, then grabbed Sansa around the waist. They made it to the top of the stair. Sansa had halfway ascended the ladder when three men-at-arms came pounding up the stairs toward them.

Brienne dropped Arya to the floor and drew Widow’s Wail. It was whisper-light and fast in her hand.

“Get up that ladder and find Jon,” Brienne barked at Sansa.

Behind her, Sansa groaned in pain but continued to climb.

Brienne stepped forward to meet the swordsmen. They came one at a time, thank the gods, for she could spare only one blow for each. Widow’s Wail cut through the air so fast she could hear it sing. The first man she rent from shoulder to groin. The second swung at her, but she knocked aside his blow and shoved her sword through his heart. The last came at her with his blade raised overhead. She sidestepped and swung hard, severed his arm at the shoulder, and half his neck with it.

She looked up to see Sansa slip through the trapdoor.

Brienne hefted Arya over her shoulder and climbed. Fresh shouts echoed from the stair.

On the roof, Sansa screamed as she climbed the rope on Robb’s shoulder. Brienne closed the trapdoor after her and stomped on the latch to jam it.

Once Sansa was in the saddle, Jon brought Robb’s shoulder within arm’s length, and Brienne threw Arya to him.

Unbalanced by the throw, Brienne teetered and almost fell. The rain obscured the view, but her stomach lurched in a way that left her in no doubt of the lethal drop to the courtyard several stories below.

She heard the trapdoor begin to splinter behind her. She grabbed the rope and jumped.

“Go!” she shouted at Jon. “They have crossbows! Set down somewhere quick!”

She bounced against Robb’s scales as they flew away. It felt as though she was falling, but she held fast to the rope as wind pummeled her, and the rain pelted her in the face.

Brienne’s arms trembled. She shouldn’t have come.

 _I’m going to fall,_ she realized.

Then she did fall, but only a handsbreadth to the ground as Robb landed. She lay at the bottom of a small rocky ravine, her cheek pressed into the mud.

There were shouts in the far distance; the rain distorted the direction.

“We don’t have long,” Jon said. He was trying to secure Arya to the saddle. “Where are her injuries?”

Sansa’s voice was weak. “Her left side.”

Jon cursed quietly and pressed a ripped piece of his tunic against Arya’s wound. Brienne got to her feet.

More shouts. Closer. Hoofbeats.

 _“Gods,”_ Jon whispered. He shot Brienne a look as he strapped Sansa and Arya to the saddle as gently as he could.

Brienne climbed up behind them.

The hoofbeats were closing from the northeast; torchlight glowed about the riders, even through the rain.

“We have to go,” Jon said. He glanced back at Brienne and nodded toward Arya. “She won’t make it to Riverrun.”

Their original plan was to head for Riverrun after they left the Eyrie.

“Find the High Road and head for Saltpans, Lord Bronn has a maester,” she said. They’d camped with Bronn’s forces outside Saltpans the night before and departed from there earlier in the afternoon.

Brienne barely had a grip before Robb leapt into the air. She grasped one of the loose ropes and tied it around her waist, just in case. They flew briefly in a circle.

“I can’t find the road!” Jon sounded panicked as he looked down at the ground. Brienne looked down and saw only the hazy outline of mountains beneath them through the rain, but she knew the wind was from the southeast.

“Stay this course,” she said. “We’ll reach the Trident or the Bay of Crabs and find our way to Lord Bronn.”

They flew for an hour or two. Sansa’s teeth chattered as she shivered uncontrollably. Arya sat limp between Jon and Sansa, slumped to the side. Then came the fog, thick and dank. The rain misted around them. When the mist was flavored with the faint taste of salt, she knew they must be near the bay or the river, but no matter how low Jon flew, they couldn’t see more than a few paces before them. When the fog finally gave way to simple sheets of rain, she knew they’d overshot the water.

Jon looked back at her, desperate.

“Look for lights,” she said, uncertain, helpless. If they could just get out of the rain, perhaps...

Then she saw it. Dark ruined towers stretched into the night sky, and faint sparks of firelight glinted through windows, almost like tiny stars. Beyond, the shores of the God’s Eye stretched for leagues.

“Harrenhal!”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Rain pelted Jaime as he entered the courtyard.

The men on watch were afraid to approach the dragon, so he stepped past them. The great hulking thing gave a menacing thrum at his approach.

“Jaime!” Jon slid off the saddle with something in his arms. No—some _one._ Behind him was a redhead _—Sansa?_ And behind her, _gods—Brienne—_ alive, whole, moving. She looked up and held his gaze for an eternal moment.

Jon shoved his burden at Jaime, then turned back for Sansa. Jaime looked down to find Arya Stark in his arms. He hooked his right arm under her limp knees and held her against his chest. Her head lolled against his cheek, slick with rain and blood.

“Fetch the maester!” he cried as he walked quickly through the door of the Hunter’s Hall into the small solar Tyrion had been using.

“What’s this?” Tyrion asked as he rose from a padded chair beside the hearth. His eyes went wide as he took in Arya. “Quick—through there into the bedchamber.”

Jaime did as he was bid, and Tyrion ran ahead to throw back the quilts. They had just settled her when the maester bustled in and set to work undressing her with serving women attending him. Jon came in, hair rain-soaked, and knelt beside the bed. Jaime glanced at Tyrion. They backed away into the solar and closed the door behind them.

Jaime looked up at the noise in the doorway. Brienne struggled through, half carrying Sansa with one arm gripped low about her waist.

The Queen in the North was ghostly pale, her lips purple-blue. A quarrel stuck out of her thigh. Tyrion gasped.

“The table,” Brienne barked at Jaime. Her voice was at full strength, her tone rounded and full. He wanted to ask her to say something else, but instead used his hand and hip to shove the table full of maps and papers closer to the hearth, then cleared the detritus with a quick sweep of his arm. He helped Brienne settle Sansa upon it.

“My lady.” Tyrion was there, Sansa’s hand in his own. Sansa looked at him and reached for his cheek.

He knew well enough how Tyrion felt, but he’d had no idea—

Jaime caught Brienne’s eye. She’d seen what he had and was as startled as he was, but the moment she realized whose eyes she gazed into, she glanced immediately away.

Two of his squires stumbled into the room.

“Get more wood,” he told them. “I want this fire blazing for her grace.”

“Arya?” Sansa whispered.

“The maester is with her,” Tyrion said. He rubbed her hand between his own. Sansa told him in hushed tones what had happened, and talked about her time at the Eyrie.

Brienne stood awkward and silent before the fire. She turned her back on Sansa and Tyrion as though embarrassed by the way they looked at one another, the intimate tones of their conversation. She’d always thought anything that might belong in the bedchamber should stay in the bedchamber, Jaime had learned that quickly in Winterfell. She was so private, could be so shy.

He took his chance to drink her in whilst she looked the other way.

She looked tall and strong in her armor. Her face was still too thin but, despite her half-drowned appearance and the blood and muck that streaked her face, she looked... _good._ Hale and sun-kissed, with color in her cheeks. Almost herself. Fresh from battle, ready for—

His stare must have scorched her, for she glanced sharp at him. He tried to smile but felt his lips twist and falter instead. She looked down and began to struggle with the straps of her chest piece. He took half a step toward her to help before he realized his mistake and turned back to look at the table.

“Help the Evenstar remove her armor,” he ordered the squire who’d just arrived with an armload of firewood.

Sansa flinched as she tried to rest her cheek on the table, and Tyrion reached forward to put his hand between her and the hardwood.

He couldn’t look at that either, so he turned back toward the fire. Brienne unstrapped her swordbelt. She seemed stiff, uncomfortable to accept his squire’s help.

Her hands jerkily wrapped the belt around the sheath of Widow’s Wail. Jaime didn’t realize what she was about until she glanced surreptitiously at him from beneath the wet tresses of hair hanging in her face and thrust the sword out toward him.

He felt his nostrils flare as he looked down at it. _“No.”_

She grimaced as she looked from his face down to the sword and saw the blood on the hilt. “Oh,” she said as she pulled it back toward her, “I’ll clean it.”

“That’s _not—”_ he snapped, but he caught himself.

He turned back to the table. Tyrion had removed his doublet and was bunching it up to place under Sansa’s head. Sansa glared up at Jaime.

He’d last seen the Queen in the North during Edmure Tully’s tourney at Riverrun three years earlier. They chanced to meet alone in a corridor. She’d spit in his face.

She didn’t seem to welcome the sight of him anymore now.

“Pillows,” Jaime said as he walked toward the door. “Blankets. I’ll find some.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Brienne sat in the chair Jaime’s squire dragged before the fire for her. Harrenhal’s dark halls felt as much like a tomb as they ever had, even now as a welcome guest. The stench of blood filled her nostrils; she couldn’t seem to get away from it.

The squires took her plate and mail to be cleaned. Behind her, Sansa and Tyrion muttered soft phrases to one another that she tried not to hear.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Tyrion’s voice was sharp with reprimand.

For a moment, Brienne feared it was Cersei.

“People shouted.”

She glanced over her shoulder to see Rohanne step through the doorway with several guards milling about her.

“You let her out of the room?” Tyrion asked one of them.

“You see, m’lord,” one started sheepishly, “she ordered—”

“She doesn’t order!” Tyrion snapped. “She’s three!”

 _“Four!”_ Rohanne protested.

“Yes,” Tyrion conceded. “Four. Regardless—”

“Oh, it’s Brin,” the girl said as she sauntered past her uncle.

 _“Bri-_ enne,” Tyrion corrected. “Rather, Lady Brienne to you. Or the Evenstar.”

Brienne looked at the girl. “Just Brienne.”

 _“Bri-_ enne,” Rohanne repeated as she looked Brienne over and softly patted her birthmark whilst staring at Brienne’s face. “Did a dragon kiss you?”

Brienne blinked. _A dragon?_ She touched her cheek. It was sticky with dried blood. That explained the smell. “Oh. No. This is blood. I should wash my face.”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Did you have a battle?”

“Yes—of sorts.”

Rohanne leaned forward with the air of a conspirator and whispered, “A good knight wins without bloodshed.”

Tyrion snorted. _“Ro.”_

Brienne thought there was something different about the girl. Her curls bounced as her head whipped toward Tyrion.

“Have you cut your hair?” Brienne asked.

Rohanne nodded, but Sansa had caught her attention. She climbed on Tyrion’s lap and leaned against the table as she looked at the crossbow bolt jutting straight out of Sansa’s leg.

“Did someone hunt you?” she asked Sansa.

Sansa’s brow wrinkled.

“She’s not a stag,” Tyrion said. “Her grace Queen Sansa was wounded by some...bad men.”

“Like Nurse?” Rohanne asked softly.

Tyrion sighed heavily. “Not as badly wounded as Nurse, thank the gods.”

The last battle Tyrion or Jaime faced was at Maidenpool, as far as she knew. Surely the girl’s nurse wouldn’t have been involved. She turned to Tyrion. “What happened to the nurse?”

“She died.” Rohanne shook her head sorrowfully. “She’s in the ground. I love her.”

Tyrion looked at Brienne with pinched lips. “My sister has...left us.”

Brienne looked away from Tyrion. What did that mean?

“What does _that_ mean?” Sansa’s voice was sharp.

“What are you doing out of bed?”

They all looked up. Jaime stood in the doorway with his arms full of pillows and quilts glaring at the guards.

“People shouted!” Rohanne whined.

“You let her out of the room?” Jaime asked one of the guards as he deposited the linens beside Sansa.

“She cried,” another guard said.

“Then let her cry in the room,” Jaime said. He still wore only the loose linen undertunic and breeches he’d had on when he ran out to greet them in the courtyard earlier. His neck and clothing were smeared with Arya’s blood. It made him more menacing as he chastised the guard.

Brienne stood and helped Sansa lift her head, then settled it on the pillow. She chanced a look at Jaime. Had Cersei really left him? Left her child?

His hair was longer than when she’d seen him last; his face was shaved smooth. He caught her gaze, and his eyes went wide for a moment before she looked away.

“M’lord,” the guard continued, “we don’t know nothing about minding children. The nurse—”

Jaime silenced him with a look.

Brienne took one of the quilts and laid in gently over Sansa’s torso, careful to avoid her legs, then she added a second.

Two servants suddenly exited the bedchamber, arms full of blood-drenched sheets.

Brienne tried not to remember that Arya had come to her as a ghost in the dungeons.

Jaime took Rohanne from Tyrion and told her, “Bed. Sleep. Stay in the room.”

Rohanne took in the somber mood and simply nodded as Jaime sent her off with the guards and closed the solar door behind them.

Brienne sat again by the fire.

Weak as she looked, Sansa’s voice bit with command. “Where is your sister?”

Jaime sucked in a breath. Brienne kept her gaze steady on the fire, tried not to react.

“As I said, she left.” Tyrion’s voice was stern.

“And went where?” Sansa asked.

“We don’t know,” Jaime said as he walked over to the hearth and came to a stop beside Brienne. “She left. She tried to take my daughter and killed the nurse in the attempt.”

_Gods._

Brienne risked a furtive glance up at him. He was expressionless, but his eyes flicked her way. She turned back to watch the flames, but Jaime gave off more heat than they did.

“She has contacts in many ports,” Tyrion said. “We know she sent messages to some. We think she simply fled in fear of Daenerys.”

“You. Think.” Sansa’s voice was flat.

“We do _try.”_ Tyrion sounded as petulant as Rohanne.

“She could be a threat,” Jaime admitted in a clipped tone. “We don’t know. Hard to imagine she would ally with Daenerys.”

Brienne felt her blood run ice cold. Hard to imagine, but not impossible.

Sansa sneered. “How fortunate she has you two to protect her from any possible consequence for her actions.”

_Have you ever run away from a fight?_

Tyrion sniffed. The quilts rustled as Sansa turned away from him.

Jaime walked away from the hearth and went to stand at a window.

“She’s hateful,” Brienne whispered. “And so am I.”

Tyrion made a confused sound behind her.

She didn’t know why she’d said it, but it was out now. She couldn’t look at Jaime, but she sensed the tension in him.

He heard her.

He remembered.

Ever since she’d written him the letter, it was like something had shifted inside her.

The door to the bedchamber flew open. The maester bustled to Sansa’s side with a bow. Behind him, Jon slumped in the doorway.

“Your grace,” the maester said. “Your sister is resting quietly. I have tended her injuries as best I can. If the wound in her side does not fester, I expect her to live, though she has lost a great deal of blood. As for her child, I cannot say. It is in the Mother’s hands now.”

The maester’s words seemed to echo off the stone walls, then the room was silent as the grave.

_Child?_

“Th-thank you,” Sansa whispered at last.

“Now we must tend your wound,” the maester said.

“I’ll have food sent in to you,” Jaime muttered as he slipped out the door of the solar.

Brienne turned to watch him go.

Jon went to Sansa, gripped her shoulder. “We missed you.”

Sansa grasped his arm. “And I you.”

One of the servants began to rip Sansa’s skirts to reveal her wound. Jon bent and kissed his sister’s forehead, then turned to leave. Brienne caught Sansa’s eye and tried to smile. Then followed Jon. As she closed the door behind her, she heard Sansa softly ask Tyrion to stay.

Servants showed her to her quarters. While the maid lit a fire in the hearth, Brienne studied herself in the silvered looking glass that hung against the wall. Blood and muck painted her face in ghoulish contrast.

“Tell me,” she said. “Are the fires in the bathhouse still stoked at this hour?”

“Oh yes, m’lady,” the girl said as she dusted her hands and stood. “They’ll soon be letting it go to coals for the night, but the baths will stay hot until morning.”

Brienne slipped out of her grey gambeson and placed Widow’s Wail atop the wardrobe. “Fetch soap, towels, and a brush. Then lead me there.”

“As you wish, m’lady,” the girl said.


	7. Chapter 7

Jaime surfaced and stood in the middle of the tub, and shook the water from his head. The scent of sandalwood soap drifted in the steam that surrounded him. Hair washing was an arduous task for a one-handed man, but he wasn’t about to ask his squires to do it, and a man didn’t take bathing attendants when he went to war.

He’d just begun to work suds into his hair when someone entered the bathhouse. He hid his stump below the water. It was well past midnight, and he’d assumed he’d be alone to flounder through his bath in peace. He turned to see who came down the steps.

When she saw him, Brienne froze. The servant who entered with her walked to the bench against the wall, deposited a towel and change of clothes, then left.

Brienne looked ready to flee. He tried to smile; failed. Icy shards of memory from that cold Winterfell courtyard pricked at him.

_She’s hateful. And so am I._

He knew he was the last person she wanted to see now.

In the end, he just bowed his head slightly and turned his back to her, so she could leave the bathhouse or enter the other tub as she wished. Eyes closed, he listened close for the sound of her footfalls retreating up the stair, but he heard the rustle of clothing instead. It took a moment after he heard her enter the bath to feel the ripples lap against his skin. A wave of heat washed through him.

_There’s another tub._

He half turned and caught sight of her just as her head slipped below the water. All she wore was the black leather cord around her neck. Her long fingers swept over her face and into her hair as she came back up. The scars on her wrists had faded to faint rings of pink. Torchlight danced in the thousand droplets on her pale skin. She glowed.

He never thought he’d see her like this again. She kept her shoulders below the water, so he really couldn’t see her, but he could, because even though she was far too thin, he still knew the parts of her he couldn’t see. The parts she kept hidden beneath the water. Leagues of leg lurked somewhere in the deep. Breasts small, but perfectly shaped. He stepped back into the corner of the tub, away from her, tried to scrub his hair again, tried to pretend the sight of her hadn’t driven the breath from him—hadn’t sent blood rushing into his cock.

“You’ll risk my filth?” he asked, as though they’d simply chanced upon one another in the yard and weren’t nude and within reach of one another, as though they didn’t both know what could happen when they laid themselves bare before one another like this.

Her eyes cut to him. “Should I move to the other tub?”

“You should not,” he said. He heard the low tone in his own voice. He hadn’t even meant to say it like that. She heard it too, he saw. Her lashes fluttered as she looked down.

The lump of soap the servant left for her was still on the bench against the wall, so he held his own soap out to her. She reached out and took what he offered. His finger brushed her knuckle, and he felt it as though he’d sunk his hand between her thighs.

She moved away, couldn’t meet his eyes. That was the way with her. With a sword at her hip or a taunt on her lips, she was resolved and confident, but take those from her and, at times, she seemed uncomfortable in her own skin. Almost shy. She was tall, fierce, but he’d forgot how delicate she could seem when she wasn’t ready for a fight.

There was something about her fragile side, the side she showed when she let her guard down, that had always terrified him.

To cut the tension, he cleared his throat, gestured to his neck. “Had to wash off all the Stark blood.”

“Me too.” She stared determinedly at the soap, never let her gaze slip his way

Why did she look dejected? He heard the tale Sansa related to Tyrion. She’d just rescued the Stark women for the hundredth time. She’d just mocked him at Cersei’s betrayal. Perhaps she was concerned for Arya.

“She’s hard to kill—Arya,” he said, trying to reassure her. “She will recover.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, if anyone would survive those wounds, it’s Lady Arya.”

“It may take a moon or two,” he said.

That drew her eye. Her gaze moved over his torso and stuttered on the two worst scars Greyjoy left him.

“These are new,” he said as he gestured at them. They were his most hideous scars—apart from the stump.

“They look mortal,” she said, then her eyes flickered, and she looked down, scrubbed at her fingernails with great attention.

“Euron Greyjoy and I both thought so. Seems I’m hard to kill too.”

That startled an exhale that was almost a laugh out of her. “I know.”

“Like you. You don’t have a scratch on you.”

Her gaze snapped up to his. She crossed her arms.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, “I’m—”

“Not interested,” she whispered as she looked away.

_What?_

“I— _No._ I was going to say, I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t have rescued her. I was wrong.”

“No,” she said. She relaxed a bit, concentrated on scrubbing her arms below the water. _“I_...you were right. About Widow’s Wail. I missed the reach of Oathkeeper, but it was like magic in my hands...”

Hearing Oathkeeper’s name in the full, rich timbre of her voice was almost as good as hearing his own. Her voice was unlike any other he’d ever heard. Strong, like she was. Pure like she was. True. Like she was.

“Keep it,” he said. “Until we recover Tarth and Oathkeeper for you.” Daydreams, but he’d promise her anything to convince her.

“No,” she said, resolute. An attempt at a smile flitted across her lips. “You need it to regain your Rock.”

So they played at fantasies and hopeless dreams now. “I always knew I’d die in the Riverlands.”

She did smile then; glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “You’ve said you’d die in more than one place.”

He laughed. There was one particular place he’d said he’d die. “I’m bound to be right about one of them.”

As quick as it came, her smile died. She went back to scrubbing her arms.

He worked again at his hair as the warmth between them cooled.

“I did think you died,” she said at last. Her face turned toward the wall. She used the same tone she would use to comment on the weather. “We all thought you were dead.”

“That must have been a relief.” He knew it was wrong the moment the words passed his lips. She was still as a statue. He sat abruptly, dunked his head beneath the water, busied himself scrubbing soap from his hair. When he surfaced and wiped the water from his eyes, her back was to him.

Things had been so open between them moments ago. Something of what they had once been revived itself for a breath, but he’d opened his mouth and killed it.

“Forgive me,” he said, “that was...thoughtless. A poor joke. All my jokes are poor.”

“You should—” she stopped herself, turned slightly in profile. “You should value your life more. Far, far more.”

He didn’t mean to laugh. “You sound like Tyrion.”

She turned toward him. “Did you know...?”

Jaime felt his brows raise. She meant Tyrion and Sansa. “I knew how _he_ felt, obviously.”

“Obviously.” She nodded. “I began to suspect when we were in King’s Landing after...”

He tried to cover her awkward pause. “I never guessed she might feel the same.”

“No.” Her eyes were wide and round. “How can she?”

He pulled back. “What do you mean _‘how can she?’”_

“He killed Sansa’s handmaid. She told me. The girl she thought he loved. How—”

“That was a rash act in extraordinary circumstances.”

Brienne’s lip pulled up in a partial sneer. “Oh, well, that makes it all right, then.”

Jaime sneered back. “He regrets it, but it wasn’t unprovoked, she had a knife. And she betrayed him—she helped them convict him!”

Her eyes took on a strange light. _“Them?”_

He swallowed.

“Did everyone who helped convict him deserve to die?” Her glare was unrelenting, her tone like steel. “Or only the helpless handmaid?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “He did kill my father as well, if you’ll recall.”

Her rage seemed to subside a bit at that. “Still—”

“Brienne, you’re talking to a man who stabbed his king in the back and threw a child out a window.”

She sighed. “Sansa’s a queen and a woman grown. I suppose I cannot protect her from... _this.”_

“No. Not if she wants him,” he said. “We don’t get to choose who we love.”

The sound she made was dry. She glanced at him. “You still soothe yourself with that?”

“It’s all I have left,” he said. His laugh sounded as hollow as he felt. He wiped his hand down his face. “He regrets the girl, truly. If he could undo it, I know he would. Surely even you have a moment in your life you wish you could live again—go back and make some other choice?”

They were silent for one long moment after another. He didn’t expect her to answer.

“I would stay beside Renly’s body,” she said at last. “If they meant to accuse me—execute me—so be it. I should have stayed there and never followed Lady Catelyn. I should never have run from my duty.”

“You would never have slain Stannis and avenged your precious Renly, then,” he said, exasperated. “You would never have met Pod, or Sansa, or Arya. We never would have met.”

“You asked me if I had such a moment. That is the moment.”

“Of course, you’d sacrifice yourself pointlessly over the corpse of your great love,” he scoffed.

She glared at him, then looked down at the water.

Her lips twisted. “You were my great love.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jaime made a noise—like a sparring partner had knocked the breath out of him.

_Not now,_ Brienne told herself, _don’t tell him now,_ but then thought, _if not now, when?_

She had never said the words to him before. Not out loud. She’d written the words, though. Before she left to rescue Sansa.

After he rescued her, she had tried so hard not to let him know she still loved him. She hadn’t wanted him to realize he ripped her apart when he left her. But she was tired of pretending she hadn’t spent hundreds of sleepless nights tortured by the images her mind conjured of him happy at Casterly Rock with Cersei and their child. Tired of pretending it hadn’t destroyed her to know he’d walked away and forgot her, as if they hadn’t clung together, skin-to-skin, night after night at Winterfell.

Perhaps it made her weak and vulnerable. Let him laugh at her, or _pity_ her. She had been brave to love him—foolish, but brave. And she’d never loved him for anything but his own sake, so why hide that fact now for the sake of her own pride? She had loved him, and he had thrown her love back in her face, but why should she be ashamed?

He was deathly silent as steam curled through the air.

The dam burst.

“You hurt me,” she told him.

Why hadn’t she said it before? Why hadn’t she said it the night they fought in his tent, or the next morning when she left? To protect herself? How? How had hiding the pain helped her at all?

His lips made a noise as if he would speak.

“You _broke_ me,” she said, before he could say anything.

She sat up and leaned forward to grasp her legs; pulled her knees up to her chin. Tears filmed her eyes—she couldn’t see his face, he was just a blurred spot huddled in the opposite corner of the tub.

The bath was still warm, but a chill crept up her skin. “I knew from the time I was very young that I wasn’t...In a dress, at a ball— _As a lady._ I wasn’t what men wanted. I was a joke. Lord Renly _—Lord Renly—_ ” she hated that her voice broke; hated that tears began to slip down her cheeks, but she went on, “he told me they weren’t worth my tears.”

Her eyes closed, and she clung to the memory of that moment in Renly’s arms. “So I stopped crying. And I found another way to be.”

She swiped the tears from her face and slid her hand around the back of her neck, played for a moment with her shorn hair. “And I was fine. I could be strong. I didn’t need what other women have. But I...”

The tears clawed at her throat again; she breathed through them, didn’t fight them, let them fall. She felt him begin to stir, and without looking at him, she thrust her arm out between them. Halted him. She brought her arm back and curled it around her knees again.

“I longed to be loved, still,” she said, “as perhaps all creatures long to be loved. And then you... _you._ And don’t _—don’t think—_ that I thought you loved me. I knew you didn’t. You love her. I always knew. But you...you _saw_ me. All of me. And you accepted me. Yes, you were as vicious as anyone, but...Oathkeeper. My armor. When I looked in your eyes, you looked back at me as no one else ever had. Every time I entered a room, and you were there, I thought...”

He released a ragged breath. She hugged her legs closer, buried her chin between her knees. _Pathetic. Pathetic great joke of a girl,_ she told herself. But she wouldn’t stop.

“Then you knighted me, and we didn’t die, and I thought...I thought...” A sound, half laugh, half sob came through her mouth as her tears fell and she sniffled. “I thought you had chosen me. I thought you wanted a life with me. Perhaps you never meant for me to think so, but I didn’t understand. And I loved you. It was Cersei—” she did strangle out a laugh then, “Gods, the _indignity._ It was Cersei, who told me I did, years ago. And she was right.”

He breathed in and she feared he would speak, so she rushed on.

“Then you left.” The tears stung her eyes again as the pain swept back, fresh, like the chill in that Winterfell courtyard. She pressed a hand to her chest, felt the leather cord he’d given her beneath her fingers. “You left me. Alone. And then you _died._ You left me alone, holding everything that had passed between us in my hands. Left me alone to sort out what, if any of it, was real. Which parts might have been true.”

The anger was there now. The anger always helped. “When Tyrion was freed, I went to him. They told me you spoke to him one last time the night before...You see, I was desperate for anything. _Anything_ to help me make sense of what we had shared, to let me cling to the delusion that I had mattered to you despite what you said when you left. You will laugh—” Her own smile tasted cruel on her lips. “But I thought you might have left a message for me with him.”

He made a noise; a soft, low hum.

She shook her head. “But you didn’t. I know why. I understand how it must have been for you. You were frantic with worry for her; you faced death; you had a thousand things on your mind. And I’m sure you never thought my heart would break because none of them were me.”

The water lapped gently at the edges of the tub, made a shushing sound. She cupped some in her hands and brought it up to her face to wash away the tears.

Her breath stuttered in and out as her face dripped. “The bear pit, the sword, the armor, the knighting, the way you looked at me, the way you... _touched_ me. There was nothing I could find to hold it all together. Nothing to make it make sense—no thread to link one moment to the next if you could walk away and never so much as breathe my name again. If some of it was a lie, then none of it could be true. You want to think there can still be something—some friendship between us, but...”

Jaime’s breath faltered. She heard him begin to speak half a dozen times, then stop himself.

It was time, she knew, to let him speak. She’d never known him to stay quiet as long as he had while she poured her pain out at his feet. He would pity her; would want, somehow, to put it right for her.

She braced herself for his words, for his attempt to soften the truth of it all. Would he say he admired her? That he was honored to have known her? That she was a fond memory? She hoped he wouldn’t say she would find some new love. She feared he would try to say he was hateful and not worth her concern, as he had in Winterfell. He would attempt to placate her somehow, and she knew it would be mortifying, but she would simply have to endure. Then this would all be over. For good. Forever.

Finally, his lips parted, cracking like he was parched in a desert. “So, you’ve decided every word I ever said _—everything_ that ever happened between us—was a lie?”

“You want to tell me some of it was true. I hear it in your voice,” she said. “Perhaps some of it was. But I will never know the truth from the lies now. I have to let it all go.”

He stood. Water cascaded off him. He vaulted out of the tub and his bare feet slapped against the flagstones. She stared down at her knees; refused to turn to watch him go. The rasp of linen sounded from near the wall; she heard him wrap a towel about himself as he went. He must have been halfway up the steps before he turned back. He did not shout. His voice was almost a whisper; she had to strain to hear him.

“It _was_ a lie,” he said. “All of it.”

Then he went, and the solid door of the bathhouse thunked to a close behind him.

Her tears dried, and her teeth worried her lip. Steam curled quiet around her; the scent of his soap lingered like the last strains of a lullaby. And the words he’d said. The words she’d been so sure were true, they lingered too, a hollow echo in Jaime’s voice _—from Jaime’s lips—_ that rang false off the stone walls.


	8. Chapter 8

Brienne knelt beside the bed and took Arya's small, still hand in her own. The distinct tang of coppery dried blood permeated the air, mixed with the scent of boiled wine and sickroom.

Lady Catelyn always said that Arya took after her father. Still, Brienne thought there was something of her mother in her face as she lay pale and unconscious against the crisp white pillow. There had been no change overnight, and Jon said the maester had dosed her with milk of the poppy.

“I want to wait until she's awake,” Jon said, “before we return to Tormund and the men.”

“Of course,” Brienne whispered.

The rainstorm from the night before continued; Jon stood at the window watching the clouds. Somehow he looked worse than he had before they retrieved Sansa, with a heavy brow and dark circles under his eyes. He'd slept on the hard wooden chair beside Arya's bed, Brienne had accidentally woken him when she came in. She wondered if he felt he'd traded one sister for another.

“I had the maester send a raven.” Jon looked uncomfortable. “I thought Gendry should know.”

“Yes.” Brienne nodded. If there was a child, it seemed likely Gendry and Arya had rekindled something during their travels. She had long suspected Gendry had not married because he pined for Arya Stark, but was surprised to learn Arya may return the sentiment.

A great deal had surprised her since they'd arrived at Harrenhal.

Brienne rose to her feet and patted Arya's hand. “Rest well and mend, my lady,” she whispered. “You have done your family proud.”

Jon smiled a bit at that. “I’ll tell her when she wakes.”

She almost said she'd tell Arya herself, but it wasn't the sort of thing she generally said aloud. It was much easier to be frank when someone was sleeping. As she left the room and pulled the heavy wooden door closed behind her, she thought of all she'd said aloud the night before in the bathhouse. Her eyes closed as a wave of memory washed over her, but she let it pass.

Sansa's chamber door was slightly ajar; she pushed it open.

They sprang apart when she entered. Tyrion looked almost bashful, of all things, while Sansa merely raised an eyebrow and sat back, poised and imperious, against the pillows. Brienne found it hard to look at them.

“I’ve been to see Lady Arya,” she said.

“How is she?” Sansa asked.

“Resting.” Brienne cleared her throat and glanced at Tyrion. “Her color looks better.”

“Good, that's good,” Tyrion said. He stood and bowed to Sansa, then to Brienne. “If you will excuse me your grace, my lady. I have matters to attend.”

Sansa nodded at him. Brienne stared him down as he walked past her to the door.

“Your disapproval is noted,” he whispered with a tight smile.

Once he was gone, Sansa's head drifted to the side as she looked Brienne over. “It certainly is noted.”

“Forgive me, your grace,” Brienne said. She stared hard at Sansa. She didn't really feel like asking forgiveness at all, but there were certain conventions to be observed when one dealt with royalty.

“I presume this has nothing to do with his stature?” Sansa asked as she picked desultorily at a thread on her blanket.

“You know me better than that,” Brienne replied. “It's to do with his crimes.”

Sansa smothered a laugh. “Mmm. Imagine loving a man who'd committed a few of those.”

Brienne felt a bit of heat rise in her cheeks. “Yes. Well. Jaime never killed a woman he professed to love.”

That brought Sansa's head up fast. “From where I sat, it seemed he came fairly close.”

“I am vulnerable to many things, but it will take more than a broken heart to kill me,” Brienne snapped. She cleared her throat. “Forgive me, your grace, but it's not the men I've loved that I mean to discuss. It's the man you love.”

“I never said I loved him,” Sansa retorted. She closed her eyes and exhaled, then looked abashed. “Forgive me, my friend, I know you worry about my safety.”

Brienne took a step forward. “Deeply, your grace. Your mother charged me to rescue you from the Lannisters and I—”

“Tyrion will do me no harm,” Sansa said. “I feel safe with him. You know I would not endure him more than a moment if that weren't so.”

Sansa looked earnest. She also looked resolved. And utterly without fear. Brienne had never seen anything particularly threatening in Tyrion's behavior, but that was sometimes the case with the worst sorts of men.

However, Sansa had all but told her it was none of her business. There was little more she could do.

“I trust that you know best,” Brienne said. She dropped her chin in deference, then looked up again. “And I trust you will send word if you ever require my help. My sword is always yours. Against anyone.”

Sansa melted back into the pillows, and she smiled a genuine smile. “And I've never been more grateful than I am this morning. Thank you, Brienne. You know you've more than fulfilled your vows. My mother was right to put her faith in you.”

 _She wasn't,_ Brienne almost said, but Sansa meant to be kind, and one did not argue with kindness.

“I will leave you to your rest, your grace,” Brienne said, a small smile on her face as she went.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Reports from our scouts to the north say the bulk of Bronn's forces are moving this way,” Jaime said. He sat hard in the chair across the table from Tyrion. A freshly scrubbed bloodstain bloomed on the wood where the arrow had been removed from Sansa Stark's leg.

Tyrion looked distracted but wrinkled his brow at the morning report. “We had no word Bronn was moving south. Is there trouble at Saltpans?”

“If there was, he hasn't sent a raven. Perhaps the king sent him orders,” Jaime said. “Jon mentioned they overnighted with Bronn on their way to the Vale. I'll ask him what he knows.”

Still distracted, Tyrion nodded as he contemplated the wall as though it held some fascinating secret. He glanced up as if he'd only just remembered someone else was in the room. “Anything else?”

Jaime stared hard at his brother. Rain lashed the window; a chill tinged the air.

He tried to keep an even tone. “Have you ever heard a peculiar turn of phrase repeated by two different people and wondered why?”

Tyrion's eyes narrowed, his attention turned to Jaime at last. “I would assume conspiracy or connection of some sort.”

Jaime leaned forward, felt a muscle in his jaw tighten. “If someone were to say that I never _so much as breathed_ Brienne's name again, what would come to mind?”

Tyrion sighed and walked to a side table, then poured himself a goblet of wine. They hadn't even eaten their morning meal yet. “King's Landing would come to mind.”

“When? Why?”

“She came to me. After I was freed. As soon as I saw her, I knew she wanted to know your last words—”

“So you told her I never so much as breathed her name again?”

“No.” Tyrion glared at him. “I was blubbering about how noble your intentions were, trying to protect your worthless hide to the end. And she...she looked stricken. I knew I'd blundered somehow. I tried to tell her you had been happy with her, but that made it worse. I don't remember what I said to her, but she interrupted me.”

“She's the one who said it?”

Tyrion winced. “She knew. I'm a great authority on heartbreak, but the way she said those words, the look on her face—it stayed with me all these years. The resigned anguish of it all.” He took a sip. “It was almost beautiful.”

_Resigned anguish._

“I'm glad she managed to entertain you,” Jaime drawled, not bothering to fight the edge in his voice.

Tyrion's gaze snapped his way. “If you think I was entertained, you haven't listened to a word I've said about her. I never want to see that look on anyone's face again.”

He'd have killed any other man who put that look on her face. It was the look she'd had on her face in the bathhouse the night before. The look she'd had on her face in that snowy Winterfell courtyard. But there was no other man. Only him.

“She thinks I walked away and forgot her.”

Tyrion studied his face. “What else was she supposed to think? It's what everyone thinks. It's what I thought.”

“I never forgot.”

“I know that now,” Tyrion said. “I take it you told her?”

“I can't tell her. I can't do anything. Any word I say will only...”

Tyrion nodded. “Make it worse. Why in the _seven hells_ do you think I've been telling you to leave her alone? She's been through enough.”

Jaime covered his face with his hand. He hadn't slept. He'd just relived it all over and over and over again. At no point could he stop her once she started talking, not when she needed to release the poison she'd held inside for so long. And at no point could he correct her when she told him believing anything other than what she did would only cause her more pain.

“I thought I'd spared her,” he said, his palm over his mouth.

Tyrion's chuckle was so patronizing it almost sounded kind. “I'm afraid not.”

“No wonder she hates me,” he whispered.

“Lucky for you, she's found a new target for her wrath,” Tyrion said.

Jaime looked at his brother. “Oh. Yes. You.”

Tyrion's eyes closed in exquisite chagrin. “She found time in the midst of her heartfelt confession to disparage me?”

“She's not fond of how you left things with Shae.” Jaime eyed Tyrion's breakfast wine and considered pouring himself a goblet.

“Oh. It's just Shae?”

 _“Just._ Shae?”

“Well, I'm a good actor, but I doubt even I could feign much regret over Tywin.”

“You've certainly feigned it with me once or twice,” Jaime said.

“I regret most things I've done in some way or other,” Tyrion said. He emptied his glass. “I regret Shae in every way.”

“Well, despite your regret,” Jaime said, “Brienne's probably going to threaten you with slow, grisly death if you harm so much as a hair on Sansa's head.”

“And you didn't attempt to persuade her that I'm not a murderous wretch?”

Jaime almost laughed. “You are a murderous wretch. We're all murderous wretches, Tyrion, it should be part of our house words. But, yes, I did tell her Sansa was safe with you.”

“She didn't believe you.”

“If you were in her position, would you?”

Tyrion grunted. “Jon doesn't seem worried.”

“Jon,” Jaime replied, “hasn't noticed yet. He has other things on his mind.”

Tyrion swallowed hard and nodded. Jaime stood to leave.

“Jaime. Wait.”

There was an undertone to Tyrion's words he didn't like. He turned slowly.

Tyrion patted his doublet over the spot where his pocket was. “I've had word from King's Landing.”

_Cersei._

“Tell me.”

Tyrion closed his eyes. “Davos returned from Braavos. On his way, he chanced to meet a merchant ship.”

Jaime sat again; braced himself. “And?”

“The captain told Davos he'd seen Cersei aboard Yara Greyjoy's flagship.”

“Prisoner?”

“No,” Tyrion said.

_Of course not, the beautiful treacherous fool._

“Why would Daenerys ally with her? Cersei has nothing to offer.”

Tyrion looked a little sad. “She has information.”

“Not much.”

 _“We_ didn’t let her know much,” Tyrion conceded. “But you know she knew things we never told her. Riverrun. The ransom note.”

“Still...”

“And she's a Lannister,” Tyrion said. “Easier to hold the Westerlands with one of us on your side.”

Jaime stared at Tyrion. “Not her.” Their cousins and everyone else in the Westerlands blamed Jaime and Cersei for all their woes since Robert's death. None of the family would forgive them for sacrificing Casterly Rock to take Highgarden. Though an outsider may not understand that.

Tyrion shrugged, took a drink of wine, turned serious eyes on Jaime. “You know I can't save her from this.”

“Assuming we win,” Jaime muttered. He rested his elbows on the table and dropped his forehead into his hand.

Tyrion gave him a hard look. “You can't save her either.”

“You think I don't know that?”

“I think I need you, Jaime.” Tyrion went to pour himself more wine.

“You think I'm going to abandon you and join Daenerys Targaryen?”

Tyrion looked at the floor as he walked back to the table. “I didn't say that.”

“But you think it.” He felt numb. _What did you expect, oathbreaker?_ “You think I'll turn on you.”

“You never raised arms against any of us, I know that.”

Jaime shook his head to try to clear it. He looked at Tyrion. “Do you want me to turn over command?”

Tyrion's face fell. “No. Jaime, I know you're not going to directly betray us.”

“Directly betray us.”

Rain pounded outside. Tyrion sat again with a sigh. “Don't think that I—”

“I understand.” Jaime stood. “I do understand. Do you still want me to talk to Jon, or...?”

“I still want you to do everything you were doing,” Tyrion said. He looked up. “I trust you. And I trust if anything changes, you'll tell me.”

His heart wrenched in his chest. He wanted to rage at Tyrion for believing he'd abandon them. _How can I blame him for thinking it?_ No one knew better what he was than his brother.

_Kingslayer. Oathbreaker._

“I went to die with her, Tyrion,” he said. Useless. It was always worse when he tried to explain, but he couldn't help himself, not with his baby brother. “I couldn't let her burn alone.”

“I know,” Tyrion said. But Jaime saw the doubt in his eyes.

_Man without honor._

He left, pulled up the hood of his cloak, and walked out of the Hunter's Hall and into the yard. The wind blew fierce driving the rain into his eyes. Two of his captains found him and gave reports about Bronn's forces approaching from the northeast. He went up on the walls and walked the parapet with them to see how the men progressed clearing campsites for the men from the Reach. Harrenhal was big enough to house most of Bronn's forces, but not all. He needed to see Jon and try to find out what Bronn was doing, and how long they would tarry at Harrenhal.

“Ser.”

He let his eyelids fall closed at the sound of her voice. When he turned, Brienne stood before him. She wore her stony grey armor. A wary expression clouded her face beneath the hood of her cloak. Even with the hood, rain dragged strands of her thick blonde hair onto her face; water drained in rivulets over her luminescent skin, her cheeks, her lips. In her hand, she held Widow's Wail by the sheath. Its swordbelt dangled, the leather ran with streams of rainwater.

And her eyes, deep blue—worth drowning in.

As the storm swirled around her, she was every bit the noble knight, like a song. And she'd loved him once, this creature of myth. She'd held him in her arms as the sound of his name broke from her lips. Him. The Kingslayer. The most despised man in a generation.

He wished he could reach for her, take her in his arms, find some way to explain, so she understood what she meant to him. What it cost him to leave her. But she wouldn't believe him now, he could see that.

_You hurt me._

“I cleaned it,” she said, her hand moved closer as she held Widow's Wail out to him. “I am grateful for the use of it.”

“Keep it?”

He hadn't meant it to be a question. The wind had stolen his breath, leeched all the force from his speech.

“Ser—”

Jaime held his hand up. “Keep it. I don't want you hurt.”

Her face fell. She looked almost chastened. Was there nothing he could say—

“Cersei is with Yara Greyjoy,” he told her. “She has allied with Daenerys.”

The hand that held the sword dropped. She took a step back. “What?”

“Tyrion just received word from King's Landing.”

Her eyes seemed to trace every line of his face. “Will you go?”

He wished she'd just shove the cursed sword through his chest. It would hurt less. “No. I won't go.”

A horn sounded from down the wall. And another. Jaime turned to look north, rested his hand on the crenel. He saw them. Bronn's men. They emerged slowly from the trees. He could just make out a green banner or two shimmering through the rain.

She came to stand beside him. “Who is that?”

“Bronn and what looks like his entire army. They were spotted last night. I woke to several scouting reports.”

“How can that be?” she asked. “We left him and all his men outside Saltpans yesterday afternoon.”

“Clearly not all of them, they couldn't travel this far that fast,” Jaime said.

She pulled on his shoulder, her grip firm, alarmed, her gaze insistent. _It must be bad if she can bring herself to touch me._ “Lord Bronn and all his men were at Saltpans yesterday. That's not him.”

“Sound the alarm!” Jaime yelled down the wall. “Close the gates!”

But the horns were already blowing from the southern walls. He heard the shouts. “Dragon!”

They turned. To the south, above the God's Eye, just visible through the driving rain, he saw the black speck in the air.

 _“Gods.”_ Brienne's voice was little more than a whisper.

“Keep the sword, Brienne.”

She was already buckling it around her waist. “I'll find Lord Snow.”

Their gazes clashed for an instant, then with a nod, she was gone.

He turned back to watch the charge begin from the north. The banners that had been green only moments before were now red and black. _Filthy magic._

Men scrambled as he screamed orders. He made his way to the gate and spared a glance at the Hunter's Hall. Ro was there in his chamber. Her guards had orders for such an attack; he had no choice but to hope they were loyal and true.

Chaos reigned in the castleyard. He could feel a thrum below his feet as the heavy horse charged the walls. Someone cried out, “Archers!”

Jaime wore his sword and dagger over his gambeson but had no plate, no helmet, no shield. A thick wave of arrows hit; he crouched behind a merlon. The first ladders were on the walls as he reached the gatehouse. He had to fight the last few paces, hacking at the invaders as they tried to slip over the walls.

The last thing he saw before he slipped inside the gatehouse was Jon on his dragon, taking a leap skyward.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Brienne followed Jon out into the courtyard. He strapped on his sword and looked back at her.

“If I don't return,” he said, then he shook his head and turned away to mount his dragon.

When he glanced at her from the dragon's back, she nodded. She didn't know what he wanted to say but assumed he wanted her to look after his sisters, to carry on the fight. He'd died once already, perhaps the experience taught him not to worry overmuch about duties left undone.

Robb groaned as Jon urged him to fly. _He hates the rain,_ Jon had told her and Arya the day before as they flew into the clouds lying low over the Mountains of the Moon.

Lannister soldiers poured into the yard from Harrenhal's maze of towers and halls. She fell in with the men securing the entrance of the Hunter's Hall. Volleys of arrows began to fall around them as charging knights thundered toward the walls.

“Dragon!”

She looked behind her. Had Daenerys slipped past Jon?

A massive shadow descended into the yard, but it wasn't Drogon. This dragon was cream and gold. She'd seen it once before. Perhaps King Bran had seen the attack coming and came to help. The men in the yard gave the beast a wide berth, and it just stood there, screeching. A leather saddle had been placed on its back.

She didn't understand why the dragon didn't join Jon against Daenerys. Bran controlled it. Did he not know where Jon and Daenerys were? No one else would approach the animal, so she went. It lowered its head and growled at her. She looked straight into its eye.

“Your grace,” she said, uncertain how Bran controlled the animal. She hoped he could hear her. “Daenerys is out over the God's Eye. Your brother has gone to confront her.”

The thing crouched down and clicked at her, watched her every move. Then it lowered its shoulder as Robb did to allow someone to mount.

Brienne didn't think, she just climbed; figured it must be what the king wanted. Her hands had scarce reached the leather reins before the thing took to the air, seating her hard in the saddle. She could see the situation all around Harrenhal much clearer as she rose. The army to the north. Robb flying fast south, Drogon riding north to meet him.

And Jaime. There atop the walls. He emerged from the gatehouse to kill some men trying to set the door alight with oil and torches. But there were four of them and one of him. The dragon knew where she wanted to go before she did. It took two of the men in its jaws, and she thought it knocked the other two off the wall with its feet. Jaime's eyes went wider than she'd ever seen them as she flew past. She heard him behind her, screaming, ”No.”

She was far past the wall now. The dragon swept low over the mounted knights. It didn't breathe fire, it just grabbed and snapped with fang and claw. Horses and men shrieked and ran in fear. The dragon swept the field one way, then turned and went back to do the same again the other way. A horn sounded retreat somewhere.

How, she didn't know, but she urged the thing higher, turned its head toward the God's Eye. ”To the lake,” she yelled, hoping the king heard her through the wind and rain and din of battle. ”To Lord Snow.”

And they flew. She thought she'd known dragonflight before, but the speed at which the gold dragon shot through the air stole her breath. Robb and Drogon clashed ahead of her, their claws grabbed and ripped at one another's underbellies. She hoped Jon had strapped himself in the saddle. Then the fire began. It was weaker in the rain than what she'd seen during The Long Night, but she wondered how either Daenerys or Jon could survive it.

She thought Jon saw them coming because Robb maneuvered so that Drogon's back was to her. ”Take Daenerys,” she screamed toward the dragon's head. The gold dragon climbed high as they approached the dueling dragons. Then it dove like a hawk that had sighted prey. Brienne wondered if this was the speed an arrow flew.

Daenerys spotted them at the last. Brienne saw the woman's beautiful face twist in horror. Then they had her. Daenerys was nestled in the gold's claw, Brienne knew it as if she held the woman in her own hand. They swooped low and banked around, the gold's wing just brushed the waters of the God's Eye.

“Don't hurt her,” she screamed at the gold dragon. She thought the king would listen.

Behind them, Drogon roared in rage. By the time they turned, he charged them. The gold spun and dipped and just escaped the spear of flame he blew at them. The heat made the rain around them hiss into steam. Brienne lost sight of Jon and Robb, her cloak whipped into her face, so she scrabbled at her neck and untied it, her fingers catching in Jaime's black leather cord. The gold was fleeing out over the water now as Drogon turned to give chase.

Brienne looked over her shoulder and saw Drogon racing toward them. The gold turned and climbed just in time to dodge another spurt of flame and suddenly, Drogon was just below them, fifty tons of red and black murder.

There would be no peace whilst Drogon lived, she knew that. And she knew no one would have a better chance. She drew Widow's Wail.

She slid down the rain-slick scales of the gold's shoulder. And then she fell, for a moment, before she landed on Drogon's head. He screamed but she had already pierced his eye with Valyrian steel. As he spun and shook, the horns on his head tore at her legs, but she used the last of her strength to drive Widow's Wail in to its hilt. And then...

She fell.

She wasn't an arrow now.

She was a stone.

The water was hard. Cold. And she sank. Drogon was beside her as the surface slipped away. _I killed a dragon,_ she thought. Her lungs burned. The deep called. She closed her eyes.

The sailors always said not to fight it.

So she didn't.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jaime saw the dragon go down. He thought it was Drogon. Bran's gold still flew. The men beside him disagreed about whether a rider had fallen.

But Jaime saw that too. He stood on Harrenhal's southern wall and ignored the tumult behind him in the yard and told himself it had to be Daenerys. And he felt sure it was when the gold turned back toward Harrenhal, flew closer and closer. Jon's dragon hovered still where Drogon had fallen, flew in tight circles, and Jaime thought Jon must want to save Daenerys.

Surely. Surely that was—

The gold was closer now. The rain was heavy, so little was visible at this distance. But the thing held something in its claw, he could see that. And the closer it came, the better he saw. There was nothing but an empty saddle on the dragon's back.

He looked back out at the lake. Jon searched in ever widening circles, his dragon low above the water. Jaime worked to breathe as he watched. How long had it been?

The world grew dim. He couldn't let himself think of the Battle of the Goldroad; he fought back the memory of the pressing weight of his plate as it dragged him into the abyss.

_No._

Jon still circled. And circled.

One of Tyrion's bannermen found him. ”The Targaryen army is trying to regroup along the treeline, my lord,” the man said.

Jaime nodded. Ordered the men to prepare to ride out. They needed to work fast.

The gold dragon landed in the yard, and Jaime made himself turn away from the God's Eye. Daenerys Targaryen, dazed, dressed all in black, was curled in a ball on the ground.

“Seize her,” he ordered. “Be gentle. Take her to Lord Tyrion.”

Jaime looked back at the water. Jon's hunt continued.

It had been so long.

He stared out at the water for a heartbeat, then another.

“My lord, they're reforming ranks!”

Jaime turned away from the lake and called for his horse. On his way to the yard, he sent search parties out along the shore. Ordered his squires to locate fishing boats.

Tyrion met him in the yard as he sent his captains to organize the men into smaller squads to capture stragglers while their main force met the enemy in the field.

“Rohanne?” Jaime asked his brother.

“Safe,” Tyrion said. “The enemy?”

He nodded as he readied his horse. “They've fractured, but we need to meet them. Pursue. Break them.”

“Jaime, they say Brienne...”

Jaime swallowed. Swallowed again. “She— Jon— He...he's going to find her. I've sent men to search the shore. They're bringing boats. Mayhaps she had to swim.”

_In full plate._

“She was born on the water,” Jaime said. “She's a strong swimmer. She's strong.”

Tyrion only watched him.

Jaime mounted and rode out with his men, leading the charge.

It was nearly dusk when he returned to Harrenhal, the light fading beneath the haze of rain. His squires all milled near the gates with glum faces. Jon had taken Daenerys and the dragons to King's Landing, they told him.

Jaime didn't ask.

He just bade them bring lanterns and rode for the lake through the deluge. He rode along the western shore first, a league or better, calling, searching the rushes, the reeds. Then he returned to Harrenhal in the black of midnight and rode east. He had no moon to light his way, no stars.

In the depth of night, he boarded a fishing boat; they rowed him far out into the water. He called her name into the emptiness as the rain beat its merciless rhythm on his head, the boat, the lake.

He returned to shore and called for a fresh mount.

Tyrion rode up at daybreak just as the wind began to howl and blow the rain in sideways.

“Jon has returned from King's Landing,” Tyrion said.

“I don't care,” Jaime said.

“Jaime.”

He scanned the western shore as far as he could see, saw the lanterns of the search parties returning.

_“Jaime.”_

He pointed toward the wood on the eastern shore. “She might have crawled ashore, found shelter in the wood.”

“Jaime.”

“I need a fresh horse. I need to check the woods. She may be injured.”

“The men scoured the woods all night,” Tyrion said.

“I need a horse.”

Tyrion put a hand on his arm. “I need you. If she's out there, she'll make her way to us. But I need you now, Jaime. I need you to help me choose the way forward.”

“She may not be able to make her way back if she's hurt,” Jaime said.

“Then the men will find her,” Tyrion said. “Mayhaps she will already be back at Harrenhal waiting for us. Come with me.”

Jaime looked around. “But—”

“The men will search the shore and further inland again today,” Tyrion said. “If there is any sign of her, we will know.”

He ran his hand down his face.

“Jaime. She did her duty, and she would expect you to do yours. Help me,” Tyrion pled. “Do we go for Robert Arryn now? I need you. I need you to help me think this through.”

He looked around, stared at the remnants of battle beneath the walls, and nodded. They brought him a horse, and he rode hard for Harrenhal, Tyrion trailing behind.

At Harrenhal's black gate, he met a group of ironborn under a peace banner. They had Yara Greyjoy gagged and in chains.

“What's this?” he asked their leader.

“You the Kingslayer?” the man asked.

“I'm Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock. Who are you?”

“We was told to deliver her to you or the Hand of the King.” With a gesture from their leader, one of the men pulled Yara off her horse and led her to him.

Tyrion sucked in a breath.

“Who told you to deliver her?” Jaime asked. He called to one of his squires. “Take her inside.”

“The queen told us,” the ironborn leader said.

“Daenerys Targaryen?” Tyrion asked, confused. “Not...Sansa Stark?”

The man spat at the ground. “Nah. The old queen. Your sister.”

“Cersei?” Jaime stared at the man.

Tyrion chuckled, then broke into peals of laughter that echoed off Harrenhal's tall black walls.

They sent Yara to a tower room and entered the Hunter's Hall together. Jaime meant to eat and change clothes, humor Tyrion before he resumed the search.

When they entered Tyrion's solar, Jon stood before the fire warming his hands. Sansa sat in a chair beside him. The maester sat at the table, writing.

“And I need to send a raven to Tormund Giantsbane,” Jon said to the maester. “Tell him the king commands our men to King's Landing. Tell him Daenerys has been captured.”

“Daenerys captured. Yes, my lord,” the maester said.

“Oh,” Jon added, “and tell him the Evenstar _—no—_ tell him Brienne of Tarth has fallen.”

“Brienne of Tarth has fallen,” the maester repeated.

The black flagstone floor was unforgiving beneath Jaime's knees.

Jon turned from the fire. He looked at Jaime with sorrow in his eyes. With certainty. Then Jon shook his head from side to side, too slow as if in a dream, denied all hope.

No. _No._

Some poor fool was sobbing.

_You hurt me._

_You broke me._

Tyrion caught him, cradled him. “I know,” Tyrion crooned into his hair. “I know.”

Jaime turned his face into Tyrion's chest, his mouth stretched wide in a scream with no sound.

_Tarth has fallen._


	9. Chapter 9

The morning after Jon told him Brienne was dead, they put him on a dragon behind Tyrion and Yara and took him to King’s Landing in a maelstrom. He’d never been more grateful for rain. The heavens wept, and so did he.

The journey was wet and cold, the ground so far below him all he could see were the tops of the darkened clouds they flew over. He wondered how they would feel if he fell into one. Like snow? Like grey silk? 

They arrived in the sodden yard of the Red Keep amidst the builders and scaffolds and stone blocks. Jon and Tyrion went to bring soldiers and left him standing guard over Yara as the rain fell, and the dragon grumbled.

He could sense her eyes on his sword; could feel the way her bound hands itched to take it. He didn’t look at her as the rain dripped off his forehead, over his nose, cheeks, lips. “Try it,” he said. “Do it.”

“They say the war is over,” Yara said. “I’m not a fool.”

“I’m a fool.”

“You are,” Yara agreed. “I enjoyed sitting beside my uncle’s deathbed—he lingered two days, you know. He suffered a great deal, it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I should thank you, really.” She pointed at a rebuilt wall of the Red Keep. “He said you died in there, you and your sister. I heard it from his own mouth.”

“That would have been a stupid way to die,” Jaime said.

“More amusing than stupid,” Yara said. “I enjoyed the idea of it.”

“I’m sure you did.”

She wouldn’t have forgotten the Siege of Pyke.

“I knew your lady knight. She stood here every day after she arrived for the Great Council.” Yara smirked. “I remember that beautiful lion sword she carried. She held it while she watched them dig. No expression on her face, just her grip on that hilt—knuckles white and bulging.”

_You hurt me._

Why didn’t he tell her that night in the bathhouse? Why didn’t he break in and say it? _I hurt myself too. I hurt us both. You were right to run from me, but wrong about everything else._

But he couldn’t say it that night, anymore than he’d been able to let himself feel it as he rode to King’s Landing all those years ago. He’d had to go to Cersei. He couldn’t live out his days happy and unpunished while she died screaming. It would have been agony. 

As much agony as leaving Brienne behind? More? He hadn’t let himself think about it then. He never thought he’d be alive to know.

He knew now. When it was years, days, hours too late.

The night before, Tyrion had brought Rohanne to him despite his protests.

“I’ll frighten her,” Jaime had said as he sat on his bed and swiped at his tears.

“She’s more frightened that she hasn’t seen you for nearly two days,” Tyrion said.

He’d managed to compose himself, sit at the table, stay expressionless while Tyrion led Rohanne into the chamber, but her eyes lit with concern at the sight of him. 

“Are you sad?” she’d asked him as she climbed on the table.

He couldn’t speak, so he’d only nodded. She knelt before him; touched his cheeks, his forehead. Jaime had looked pleadingly at Tyrion.

“Why?” she’d asked him. “Why are you sad?”

“Brienne of Tarth has died,” Tyrion explained.

_Tarth has fallen._

He had nodded again but had to look away from her. Looking away didn’t help, the tears fell anyway. She patted at them with her chubby little palms.

“Lann the Clever says it’s good to cry when you’re sad,” she said. He’d told her that when her nurse was killed. He nodded.

“You love her?” Rohanne asked.

He’d had to fight the sobs then. Her arms had wrapped around his head, and she’d planted kisses in his hair, whispered, “I know. I know.”

All he could do was hold her in his arms, tell her all would be well until Tyrion distracted her and took her away again.

He feared he’d caused her harm with that display.

Perhaps it was best that she learned what he truly was now. She would know him for a worthless oathbreaker eventually. They all learned to despise him in the end. Joffrey. Cersei. Tywin. Tyrion. Myrcella. Tommen.

Brienne.

And his only child would grow to hate him soon enough. Once she was old enough to realize the thousand ways he’d failed her before she’d even been born.

Jon returned with men-at-arms, and after Jaime took Yara to a tower room, he headed for the opposite side of the castle before Tyrion could find him and hover. 

Odd that White Sword Tower, of all things, had survived Daenerys’s wrath. If anything in King’s Landing deserved to be ground to dust, it was every relic of the bloody Kingsguard.

He walked up the familiar stairs like one in a nightmare. His feet led him to the round room he knew so well, to the great table, the White Book. The four men there seemed to know him well enough when he entered if their scowls were anything to go by. Or perhaps they were only offended by the stench of dragon that clung to him. These were no Brothers of his. They were young, cocksure, annoyed by his intrusion, annoyed by his continued existence as he dripped rainwater all over their lair. He was about to open his mouth to speak when another man came down the stair and entered the room.

Jaime had been afraid the boy was on guard duty.

Podrick Payne’s kind face lit with a welcoming smile at the sight of him. But with each step closer, Pod’s smile dimmed. _Is her death writ on my face?_

Pod hesitated a pace away; shook his head in denial. Jaime opened his mouth to say it, but only managed a muffled, “Pod.”

Then the boy embraced him, hard, wept on his shoulder. There was strange relief in sharing grief with someone else who loved her.

_I longed to be loved._

The room they gave him overlooked Blackwater Bay. His days wore past as he sat in council meetings and pretended to listen to Bran or Tyrion or Jon or Davos, and nodded at reports, and greeted courtiers, and ordered soldiers. 

The rainstorms died and the heat returned, but with Daenerys in a tower cell, the chatter was as much about when the Citadel would send a raven to announce summer had arrived as it was about the war. The gold dragon was spotted on and off near Harrenhal; Jon suspected Bran had lost control of it, but no one wanted to ask. No peace had been brokered with Lord Arryn or the many followers of R'hllor, but that seemed more a matter of negotiation.

After a week, his men arrived and camped outside the walls. They brought with them Sansa, a newly awakened Arya, and Rohanne, who was angry she hadn’t been able to travel on dragonback as he had. She loved both the Stark sisters, though, it was the first thing she told him.

Each night, he told Rohanne her stories, put her to bed in the chamber next door, and threatened she wouldn’t be able to ride her pony the next day if she didn’t stay put. And then he huddled in the dark on the small balcony off his chamber, stared out over the water under the unrelenting gaze of the stars and tried to find some way to sleep as he wandered through every memory he had of Brienne and wondered why the gods had cursed her to know him. Sometimes he prayed in the evening heat, or pretended to, and asked the gods why they’d taken her and left a useless old cripple like him.

Several days after Sansa and Arya arrived, he sat with them and Jon in Maegor’s Holdfast while the king and his council were briefed on the latest message from Robert Arryn. Tyrion had taken for himself the chamber off the courtyard where Cersei had painted her map on the floor. Rohanne skipped along the crack in the middle of the map whilst Edmure droned about negotiating peace with Daenerys.

Bran listened to all of his uncle’s inane suggestions, then said, “With Drogon no longer a threat, it seems—”

“Your grace,” Podrick Payne interrupted after he responded to a knock at the door. “Lord Gendry is without.”

That meant the Northern forces had arrived.

Bran nodded in his disinterested way. “Send him in. Thank you, Ser Podrick.”

Gendry entered with Tormund Giantsbane on his heels. 

The redheaded menace had the nerve to come over to Jaime, to greet him, as though they shared something—as though she meant the same thing to them both. Jaime gritted his teeth.

“She was a knight,” Tormund said, with a fierce nod. 

“Yes.” Jaime tried to turn away. 

“Killed a dragon!” Tormund shook his head in wonder.

Gendry had been staring at Arya Stark but looked up at Tormund’s declaration.

“Oh,” Gendry said, then he reached into his pocket and retrieved folded parchments. He handed one to Podrick, whose face fell when he looked at the seal. 

Then Gendry turned Jaime’s way.

Jaime took a step back and sagged against the wall as Gendry held the parchment out to him. They watched him. All of them. Even Rohanne had ceased to play.

He took the letter but tried not to look at it. He could feel the indentations on the wax against his palm. He caught a glimpse of his name on the front, rendered in black ink by her steady hand: “Ser Jaime Lannister.”

All he could do was tuck it away in the pocket of his gambeson. At supper, Tyrion offered, in a gentle voice, to read it for him, but Jaime declined. That night, once Rohanne was abed, he laid the letter on the table in his chamber. He’d asked his squires to bring extra candles, and he lit them one by one. 

The wax on the letter was red, and her seal had been pressed in it, the arms of House Tarth. It felt brittle under his fingers as he cracked it.

_You hurt me._

_You broke me._

It was her signature at the end that he read first: _Brienne of Tarth, Lady of Evenfall, The Evenstar._ He traced the letters with his finger. He read the message once, twice, a third time to be sure he had it all.

_Ser—_

_I have no gift for words, and you mislike reading, but I know no other way to send a message to you. If you do not wish to read this letter, burn it. Perhaps you will burn it before you read this far, and I speak only to myself now. So be it._

_You believe I hate you. At times I thought I did, but I never could. I have felt anger and shame. And I have felt pain, for my heart was broken at the loss of you._

_I never told you that I loved you. I was afraid to say it, perhaps in some way aware that you regretted what we became in Winterfell. So I held it in. I see now that all my anger, all my pain, comes from that love._

_When I first knew you, I believed what they said about you. I called you Kingslayer. I looked at you and saw an oathbreaker. I did not know you long before I understood you are not what people believe you to be. You are not evil, not a creature of malice or hatred. Love drives you._

_When last we met, you asked my forgiveness. I could not answer. I never blamed you for loving her. And I believe you brave and honorable for choosing to die by her side._

_However, as you said, whether you meant to or not, you wronged me. You broke no oaths or vows, but when you said you would stay with me in Winterfell, I believed you. When you spoke of the future, I imagined we would share a life. I could see it when I closed my eyes. When you left, I think you meant for me to hate you. What you said destroyed all that had ever passed between us. You likely meant it as a kindness. It was not kind. To hear how little you valued what we shared did me grave harm. Some part of my anger and pain over these things will always linger. Seeing you made it all fresh again, but the pain and anger begin to dull once more now we are apart._

_It is my love for you that never seems to fade._

_If you hold this letter, I am dead. I do not think I could be so bold were that not so. I have heard that you tried to ransom me, and am heartsick at the price you were willing to pay. I think you must feel yourself indebted to me in some way. I know how you are with debts. I fear perhaps you will blame yourself or feel some guilt at my death._

_I know too well how it feels when someone dies with too much left unsaid between you. I would spare you that pain. And I will save myself the pain of dying with these words still held in._

_I forgive you._

_You are flawed, but you are a good man. Your family needs you. I believe the realm needs you. Live. Value your life as I value it, and live._

_I am, as ever, yours—_

Revulsion pulsed through him as he tasted her words again and again. Finally, he slumped to the floor, lay out flat, and rested his cheek against the cool tile, nauseous. 

She never intended the letter to be cruel, but it left him bleeding. 

He knew he hurt her when he left her in Winterfell, but the way he hurt her, the depth to which he hurt her—he hadn’t understood that until it was far too late.

When he’d allowed himself to think about her over the years, he imagined her as he always saw her: strong, unshakable, resolute. He imagined her guarding Sansa, or ruling her island, too busy, too confident of her place in the world, to think overmuch about him other than to deem him unworthy of her time or any further consideration. 

He’d assumed she’d simply washed her hands of him.

Despite the way her tears had shocked him, despite the fact he knew there was more to her than what she let most people see, he’d never imagined he could do anything to make her question her value—especially her value to him. Between what she’d said in the bath and in the letter, he knew he’d hurt her worse than anyone ever had. Because she let him get close.

Because she let herself believe in him.

Because she loved him.

That was the hardest thing to take because that wasn’t how it was meant to be. Jaime loved. He wasn’t loved. He was needed, or wanted, or feared, or appreciated. Except she said otherwise. He’d heard it from her own mouth, read it in her careful hand. She never lied.

And now she was gone.

It felt like the ground had opened up beneath him like there was nothing to hold him up—far worse than when they were simply parted. Back then, she was safe. Better off without him.

Not like this.

He missed her, and he bled with the missing, wounds soul-deep and real as any he’d ever felt in his flesh.

He missed her existence, he missed the great things she would have done. He kept thinking about how she would act if she were in King’s Landing for this peacemaking farce rather than him, what she would do, how much better she would be than all of them.

And he missed the sound of her voice, the way the rich depth of it played along his spine. He missed her surly silence; missed the stubborn tuck of her chin. He missed the almost delicate movement of her fingers on the hilt of her sword. The way she looked straight into him with her burning blue eyes. The enchanting sweep of her rare smile. Her legs. Her perfect, long, legs—

Well past midnight, one of his squires entered his chamber and came to stand before him on the balcony, where he hunched with his back against the red stone staring up at the stars.

“My lord,” the lad said. “Forgive the intrusion, but they sent me to fetch you. Lady Cersei has been captured.”

They had her in Maegor’s Holdfast, in Tyrion’s chambers. They were all gathered around the council table to stare her down. Most looked like they’d been brought from bed.

Sansa sat in Tyrion’s seat, flanked by Arya and Jon. Bran sat off to the side, Podrick stood severe and silent behind him. The rest were seated on either side: Davos, Maester Samwell, Gendry, Edmure, Giantsbane inexplicably. 

And Bronn, who looked dusty from travel, lounged with his feet up. 

_He must be the one who caught her._

Tyrion stood at the window with his back to the room.

Cersei stood facing them all, hands bound. Her clothes looked a bit worse for wear, but she looked a queen in any circumstance. When he entered and walked past her, he could feel her eyes on him. He joined Tyrion at the window. 

It was a clear night, though the stars were dulled by the light from the room behind him. He could see the castle and the city below, lights from hearths and torches and candles flickered through windows as the people of King’s Landing whiled their night away. Safe. Thanks to the bravest knight Westeros had ever known.

“What’s wrong with you?” Cersei asked.

Jaime realized the room was silent and looked away from the window. Cersei stared at him.

“He’s fine,” Tyrion said at last.

Jaime started to turn back to the window, but she spoke again. He caught the twitch in her cheek as she asked, “My child?”

Tyrion snorted. “Perfectly well. Good of you to remember her.”

Jaime turned away again.

Davos and Sam asked most of the questions. They’d had much of the story from Yara a fortnight before. Tyrion said the ironbon leader was many things, but not a liar. Cersei had allied herself with the followers of the Red God, then used her trading contacts to sway some ironborn and to hire mercenaries. She let Daenerys think she was on the Targaryen side in exchange for lordship of the Westerlands. Then she used Yara’s kidnapping to lure Daenerys to battle. She wanted Jon and Daenerys to eliminate one another and thought she could step in and rule through the chaos that followed.

The plan was absurd. Jaime believed every word of it.

Cersei wouldn’t answer their questions. Jaime didn’t need to look at her to imagine her expression.

Davos eventually found a way to get a response from her. “Did you promise your daughter in exchange for the king’s assassination?”

“No.” She sounded affronted.

“They didn’t ask you for king’s blood?” Davos persisted.

After they arrived in King’s Landing, it was Davos who explained to them about the supposed magic of king’s blood. Davos, who told them how the shadow assassins were made; about the burnt sacrifices, and Shireen Baratheon. 

Jaime didn’t believe it of Cersei, he couldn’t, but it was clear enough what could have become of their daughter if Cersei had managed to put her in the hands of the Red God’s fanatics.

Cersei’s voice dripped with condescension. “I have all the king’s blood anyone needs. Enough to take care of any kings and queens.”

Sansa’s chuckle was low and fearless.

“Queens?” Bran asked in his flat voice. 

Jon made a pained sound. Tyrion stirred. Jaime pulled himself away from the window and looked at Cersei. 

“Sansa?” Tyrion asked in a light tone, almost teasing. The way he sounded when he played a deadly game.

“Do you imagine that the servants of the Lord of Light will stand for my imprisonment?” Cersei asked their brother. A threat. Jaime stared hard at her, at the movement of the muscles around her eyes. It was also a bluff, at least in part.

“Daenerys?” Jon ground out at her.

“Oh,” Cersei said, as she focused her venom on Jon, “you aren’t worried for her, are you? Surely she’s safe in your hands?”

Jon started for the door.

“We haven’t even made peace yet,” Edmure said. “If she dies whilst we hold her—”

“Thank the gods you’re here to explain the problem to us, Lord Edmure,” Jaime said as he followed Jon.

Edmure made a move to stand as he sputtered toward Jaime. Gendry and Davos stopped the lord of Riverrun with hands on his shoulders.

Edmure was a fool, but he was right, they needed to protect Daenerys and Bran was the only one who knew how to do that. Jon was already out the door, and Jaime was close behind. Cersei had tried to catch his eye as he walked past, but he ignored her.

“I don’t—” Jon turned to him once the door was closed behind them. “I don’t even know where she is.”

“I do,” Jaime said. He’d gone with them to escort Yara to her room two floors up from Daenerys. 

They kept seven guards outside her door, like a twisted play on a Queensguard. When they entered, Daenerys was awake, despite the late hour. She sat fully dressed on a chair by the narrow window, her arms around her knees as she stared out at the city.

She was small, as her mother had been, but more beautiful. Her breathing sped at the sight of the two of them, but she tried hard not to let them see her fear.

Snow stopped halfway in the room, seemed to realize her panic. The man looked distraught as he raised his hands to placate her.

“Come with us,” Jon said. “Please.”

Daenerys looked back and forth between them. Jaime almost laughed. He and Snow were the last two people who should have come, the two people likely to frighten her most by appearing in her cell past midnight.

“We’re not here to assassinate you,” Jaime said, moving past Jon. “Even kingslayers can resist regicide from time to time.”

He thought of Brienne as he stared at Aerys’s daughter. Brienne had plucked her from the sky unharmed and must have meant for the woman to live. So Jaime intended to see to it she did.

Slow and deliberate, Daenerys stood. Regal, fear under control, she faced them as if they’d come to take her to her execution. He didn’t particularly trust her, but she could have burnt half of Westeros, and she hadn’t. Mayhaps she’d changed. A bit, anyway. 

Perhaps she was proof that none of them needed to do what they’d done before.

There was so much softness in the look Jon gave her, Jaime had to look away from them, but not before he saw the look she gave Jon back. It could have melted steel. 

_No undoing the past,_ he thought, but they had to live and fight.

“Lord Snow and I will lead the way if you’ll follow,” Jaime said. They left her hands unbound. He felt her eyes on his back and knew she was thinking about the sword he’d plunged through her father. 

They led her to Maegor’s Holdfast. The room was deathly quiet when they entered. Edmure offered Daenerys his chair. She took it with wary eyes.

Cersei was already gone. Whether to a tower cell or the dungeon, he didn’t ask. 

Podrick brought Yara Greyjoy, and they gave her a seat at the table too.

Jaime went back to the window as the rest of them talked it all out. They negotiated the night through as the stars blinked out one by one.


	10. Chapter 10

The Isle of Faces—for Brienne believed that was where they'd washed up—was an eerie, haunted place. She pottered through the rain day after day and scavenged for small lake fish, berries, wild radish, and chive. At night the shadows moved strangely in the forest, and she avoided the deep wood where she'd seen the weirwoods growing in dark groves with their ghastly carved faces, nothing like the tame weirwoods she'd ever seen in a godswood, not even in the North.

Her only comfort was the vast stinking bulk of Drogon, always within a few paces. He whined and grumbled at her every move, and watched her warily with his good eye, but he never hurt her despite the fact she'd nearly killed him _—meant_ to kill him.

She'd given herself up for dead when they fell from the sky and been ready to surrender to the deep. Then she'd been thrust above the surface for just long enough to take an aching gulp of air before being dragged back down again. It took two or three repetitions of the strange up and down motion, and the pain at the back of her neck, for her to realize the leather cord Jaime had given her was caught on one of the spines of Drogon's tail. The dragon struggled to bring his nostrils to the surface and used his tail to propel himself.

They went on that way for hours as she slowly dropped her plate piece-by-piece to the bottom of the God's Eye. Night had long since fallen when they washed ashore. She'd thought Drogon dead when she braced her foot on his skull and pulled Widow's Wail from his eye, but he'd mewled like a dying kitten as she did, and she'd felt guilt like she'd never known as his blood ran afresh, washed thin by the rain to fall on the stony shore beneath them. That night she'd awoken under the rocky outcrop she'd sheltered beneath to find his head beside her, and they'd coexisted since.

The gold dragon helped. It found them after a few days and returned every day or two. Though it wouldn’t let her anywhere near it, it fussed over Drogon and brought him freshly killed sheep and charred them for him.

Drogon couldn’t fly, he just stumbled and flopped to the side when he tried. He couldn’t blow flame either, though he could cough a few sparks, enough for her to light a fire in their strange shared shelter. After all her time locked in dungeons, the cold and wet of the open wood didn’t bother her as they once would have. At least she was free, and the air was fresh—well, fresh as any air scented by dragon could be.

She spent most of her days beneath the leaves of an old oak that grew along the shore skipping stones in the gentle lap of the lake, waiting for the rain to end so she could risk a swim to the eastern shore. She needed to return to Harrenhal.

Something told her Jaime was alive, though she couldn’t say what. On the darker nights when she shivered while the wind blew the rain into her shelter, she wondered if it was merely her fear that she couldn't withstand his death again that convinced her he'd survived. She needed to see him for herself. To look into his brave, reckless, piercing eyes—to see his unrepentant smirk—and know he lived.

She didn’t like the way they’d parted, though she knew no way to mend it. The look on his face when she asked him if he would join Cersei had been nothing short of stricken.

He wouldn’t abandon them in the midst of war, he never had—even Sansa had said it all those years ago when she found Brienne weeping beside the Red Keep the night they’d arrived in King’s Landing. “Well at least he didn’t do anything to help her win, I’ll give him that,” the Queen in the North had conceded.

Jaime had cut her to the quick. She could never cut him so deep, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t wound him. She’d heard it in his voice that night in the bathhouse when he said everything they’d shared had been a lie. She had imagined him saying those words, admitting to them, a thousand times, but when she heard them from his mouth, in his voice, they sounded absurd.

She thought perhaps he had meant much of what he’d said and done—maybe even all of it. What she hadn’t known then was that a man could say such things, even mean them, but that it didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to marry her and take her back to his castle.

Though he had, more than once, mentioned taking her to his castle.

Still, Brienne understood better now how it was between women and men. After Jaime, and Hyle, and Tormund. She might be the last woman any of them would choose in a ballroom full of ladies, but put them in a war, or a frozen waste, or a darkened corridor, and she had the right parts to satisfy. She'd been warned about handsome men tumbling maids and leaving them ruined the same as any other young lady, she'd just never understood it was a lesson she too would need—perhaps even more than the beautiful girls.

She’d learned the lesson now. Too late to avoid the hurt, but soon enough to keep from compounding it.

Once she returned Widow's Wail to him, once the war was done, once she could return to Tarth and he could return to Casterly Rock—then she would be well. Even if she did have to see him again in another five or ten or twenty years, she could nod at him across a room, perhaps even speak to him, and they could both remember for a moment that he'd once thrust himself inside her while she screamed his name and then they could walk away again; he could forget again; that would be all.

And if she still loved him in twenty years, and forever longed for his touch in the night, so be it. Sometimes she forgot she'd wanted his touch years before he reached for her. The outcome might not have been much different if she'd never shared his bed.

So Brienne waited beside the dragon she’d meant to kill for the rain to stop, and when it did, she strung her boots around her neck, strapped Widow’s Wail over her shoulder, and waded into the water.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Marriage was a time-honored Westerosi solution to a host of political ills, so Jaime wasn’t surprised when Davos suggested it during the overnight peace negotiations. The surprise was that he proposed a marriage between Bran and Daenerys. There was a strange, bloodless elegance to it, Jaime supposed. A good way to bring Lord Arryn and R’hllor’s clergy to heel: put Daenerys on a throne. If not _the_ throne.

After dawn broke, and the marriage was agreed upon, Jon had quietly slipped away with a murmur that it was time to fly toward Harrenhal and try to corral Bran’s gold dragon. Jaime envied him his escape.

They broke briefly in the morning to sleep, but from midday onward the negotiations continued. Jaime had nothing to contribute, but he felt obligated to be there, and not just because Tyrion kept sending servants to fetch him. Brienne had sacrificed herself to end their bloody war, and he was going to stand in the room with his hand on his sword like she would have done and watch them all until they’d finally finished it.

So he sat through their talk of rushed marriage contracts and last minute feasts and impromptu tourneys and celebrations.

Near sunset, the servants laid out trays of food on the council table for supper. Jaime stood in the courtyard, watching Rohanne arrange her toys on the vast map of Westeros on the floor.

She dropped her toy horse on the worn paint over Riverrun and looked up at Jaime with a smirk. “See, now I own it.”

“Your strategy isn’t sound, and your siege would fail,” he said. “Tell me why.”

Ro crossed her arms and looked down at the array of wooden horses and soldiers she had spread around the riverlands. “I forgot the army needs food again?”

“You forgot the army needs food again.”

“Why is it always Riverrun you’re teaching her to conquer?” Edmure asked from the edge of the courtyard.

“The rivers.” Jaime wasn’t sure if he or Ro said it first.

Edmure raised his lip in disgust. “So this is Lannister childrearing. You start teaching them from infancy how and why to conquer neighboring kingdoms?”

Tyrion’s laugh rang out as he wandered into the courtyard. “Oh, this is nothing, Lord Edmure. Tywin Lannister would have meted out spectacular punishment for failure to conquer Riverrun by age four. Jaime’s too soft.”

Jaime winced and glanced down at Ro. She grinned up at him. He mussed her hair. She was so much more intelligent than he was. Capable of learning without the lectures...and punishments. “She’s learning.”

Edmure wasn’t finished. “I teach my son how to do traditional things. How to ride, how to shoot a bow—”

Ro ignored Edmure and looked up at Jaime. “Can I shoot a bow?”

Jaime recoiled. “No. Archers are cowards.”

Ro’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Are you calling me a coward?”

Jaime glanced at Edmure. “I don’t know. Are you a coward?”

He felt the eyes of everyone in the Hand’s chamber now. They’d all stopped grazing over the food and moved to the edge of the courtyard.

Edmure sneered. “How good are you with your left hand?”

“Better than you ever were with your right.”

“Rather impossible to prove now,” Edmure taunted.

“Come Edmure, they’re planning a melee for their farce of a tourney after the wedding. Let’s you and I dance together and see.”

“Uncle. Ser Jaime.” Sansa strode haltingly into the courtyard and stood between them. “We’re making peace today, are we not?”

Arya chuckled from somewhere near the table.

Edmure bowed gracefully to his niece, then sketched Jaime a mocking bow. Jaime blinked slow as he took in Edmure’s smug face for a beat before he returned the bow. Edmure turned on his heel and walked away. The tension in the group of onlookers eased, and they turned back to the food.

Sansa limped over to Jaime. Her eyes glittered as she glared at him. “You have used up all the forbearance your grief has bought you.”

Rohanne stepped between them. His daughter adored Sansa, happily followed her anywhere, and referred to her exclusively as “the queen.”

Her little nose scrunched as she tugged Sansa’s skirt and asked. “What’s grief?”

“Sadness for one who died,” Sansa explained.

“Nurse,” Ro said with a sad smile.

Sansa nodded. “And Lady Brienne.”

Ro nodded back. “And what’s four bear ends?”

_“For-_ bear _-ance_ is what it takes to live with your reckless father.” Tyrion handed Ro a toy horse to distract her and gave Jaime a bemused look.

“I have _for_ -bear _-ance,”_ Ro said as she went back to her siege.

Jaime looked down at Sansa for a long moment, then swept a dramatic and sweeping bow for her. “Your grace.”

Sansa huffed and turned away with a swish of her skirts.

“You could try a little harder,” Tyrion said, soft so only Jaime would hear.

Jaime scoffed. “You think I can win her over?”

“No. But you don’t need to antagonize her.”

“I don’t care what Sansa Stark thinks of me.”

“Obviously. You don’t seem to care about much anymore,” Tyrion sighed. “Try? For my sake?”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“It doesn’t seem politically prudent,” Tyrion muttered.

“Fuck political prudence. You just survived a war that should have killed us all. Someone should be happy.”

Tyrion patted his arm and walked away as the sun sank in the west.

Rohanne began to remake her siege, and he watched her in the dimming light. Lanterns and torches were lit within the Hand’s Chamber behind him to cast their glow across the courtyard.

“Brienne?”

He thought at first he’d imagined he heard it, but then—

“Brienne!”

His head was heavy and hard to lift, but he sensed movement by the door of the chamber. He began to turn, but he moved slowly like he was caught in deep water. He heard the voices. His heart raced. When he finally managed to turn around, he saw Jon beside the door beaming. That couldn’t be right. Jon was sad about Daenerys marrying Bran.

Then Brienne walked in the door.

Brienne.

Alive.

She was tall and straight but uncomfortable in obviously borrowed clothing. Her hair was windblown, she had her chin tucked, an awkward almost-smile on her face.

_Brienne._

He thought of the illusion the red priests used at Harrenhal to disguise the Targaryen army to make it look like it was Bronn’s, and he wondered if this was some horrible magic trick.

Then he heard her voice. Her unmistakable beautiful full voice.

“I’m alive,” she said to Sansa.

He could hardly breathe. He couldn’t stand anymore. So he sat. Right where he was.

Rohanne tugged on his upper arm with both hands, tried to move him. “You ruined the siege! You’re sitting on all the horses.”

Brienne moved through the chamber. Sansa grabbed her in a fierce embrace. Then Arya. Pod beamed as they grabbed one another by the shoulders and touched their foreheads together. She walked to Daenerys and said something serious that made the woman cry. Davos beamed up at her and clapped her on the back. Bronn said something that made her roll her eyes. She ducked Tormund. Ro was in front of her then; he hadn’t even seen his daughter leave the courtyard. Whatever Ro said confused Brienne. Tyrion grasped her hand, told her something, gestured toward him.

And then.

Then she looked his way.

She looked him over, seemed bewildered, and gave him a half nod.

He blinked and lifted his hand, nodded back.

Then she turned away.

She was dead a few moments before. And now she was alive.

And he didn’t even have the right to speak to her. Tears stung his eyes, but he fought them back. His arms ached to hold her, he wanted to feel her weight pressed against his chest, just for a moment, just long enough—

He scrambled to his feet and entered the chamber, leaned against one of the pillars at the edge of the room. He watched as Sansa pulled her into a chair, listened as Brienne told her wild tale. Drogon lived. Endless rainy days on the Isle of Faces. She rode the gold dragon to King’s Landing. Jon said the dragon was hers now.

Jaime drank her in as she talked. He breathed in the sight of her, the sound of her. Her smile was small and bright in the torchlight, and it seemed to him she lit the room.

He was in flames; wanted her so much he was afraid to move. His fingers ached to sweep that small lock of hair from her temple. His lips burned to touch the skin of her throat, his tongue—

Tyrion cleared his throat and begged pardon of, “The estimable Lady Brienne,” and bade the group turn toward serious peace talk again. Brienne nodded and left the table, stood against the opposite wall. She murmured with Podrick, but mostly just listened. He wished she could bear to look at him.

Then she did. Her eyes flicked up from the table, and her mouth parted slightly as she looked at him. His blood sang in his veins. She moved away from Pod and walked around the room toward him, her eyes on him the whole way.

_Don’t make it worse,_ he told himself. _Don’t make any of it worse._

She unbuckled her swordbelt as she walked, held Widow’s Wail by the scabbard. She stopped half a step away from him, shoved Widow’s Wail against his chest, then released it. He had no choice but to catch it in his arms.

Her eyes were liquid blue; they searched his face.

“Thank you,” she said. “The sword saved me. More than once.”

His voice shook. “They told me you were dead.”

She looked startled. “I’m alive, ser.”

“Jaime,” he corrected. The saddest, softest plea he’d ever uttered in his life.

She looked up at him again. Her mouth moved like she would speak, but she only nodded. Then she turned away and left him, took a seat beside Gendry.

He wanted to take her face in his hand; wanted to press a bruising kiss to her lips; wanted her arms twined around his neck; wanted her teeth on his skin; wanted to pull her away from this room; wanted them to devour one another.

He wanted her to want it. Wanted her to want him.

Jaime Lannister was used to wanting what he could not have.

He wandered to the opposite end of the table and sat next to his brother. Brienne listened and said nothing, but her face spoke volumes as the night wore on. Rohanne came and climbed on his shoulder with a yawn and eventually fell asleep in his arms. Usually, he’d have left to put her to bed, but instead he held her while she drooled and dreamed. All so he could keep watching Brienne’s living, breathing face while she disagreed with half of what was said without ever saying a word.

When they finally broke for the night, Sansa hustled her out the door, murmuring about taking her to the maester.

Jaime sent Rohanne away with her guards and asked Tyrion for a word. When they were alone, Jaime sat across from his brother.

Tyrion laid his palms on his desk, gave a measured smile. “I’m happy for you, Jaime.”

The breath rushed out of Jaime’s lungs. He slumped in the chair. “I can survive anything as long as she’s alive.”

“Yes,” Tyrion said. “Good.”

“I need a favor.”

Tyrion sighed. He sounded resigned. “You’re my brother, and I’ll do anything for you, but I don’t think things are going to go as you hope. Much as I would love to have dragonriders in the family.”

“I don’t care about dragons.”

“I know.”

Jaime swallowed. “I know exactly how it’s going to go. I know there’s no hope, but I’m not going to wake up one day four years from now and wonder if things might have been different if I tried. I need to do this right, just once.”

With a tight, indulgent smile, Tyrion pulled out a parchment and quill. “What do you want it to say?”


	11. Chapter 11

King’s Landing was a furnace. Even with the breeze from the bay wafting through the large open windows and terraces of Sansa’s generous apartments, the heat and the stench of livestock and sewage from the city were overpowering. Brienne looked out the window, past the rosy stone walls of the Red Keep, and longed for home—for Tarth—for the cliffs of Evenfall and the waterfalls and fresh sea air, for the loamy green fields and the towering mountains and the perfect stretch of sapphire blue water.

“I will leave a fortnight after the wedding,” Sansa said as she gave Brienne a telling look. The statement was a continuation of whispered conversations from breakfast and the night before.

The Queen in the North made a quarter turn as the dressmaker bade her.

“I may go with you,” Arya told her sister from her chair by the window where she sat spinning a knife in her nimble fingers. Arya’s recovery seemed, to Brienne, nigh miraculous—as if she was immune to the real strength of the steel that had left her bleeding in the Eyrie.

Brienne hadn’t been in the city more than a few moments before she knew Sansa was furious at the idea of Bran marrying Daenerys. Arya was more circumspect, but not happy either. And Jon...

When she walked through the gates of Harrenhal the day before, Jon had looked like he had seen a ghost. She’d thought it was the sight of Drogon loping along behind her that put the look on his face. It wasn’t. He’d told her that he thought her dead. That everyone did. That Jaime had searched for her, but that they all knew she was gone.

Then he’d begun to tell her of the peace, Cersei’s attempts to exacerbate the war. The threat from the followers of R’hllor. And the marriage.

Jon’s face had twisted in Harrenhal’s midday sun as he told her. “It was decided in the early hours this morning. I thought today would be a good day to come back and search for the gold dragon.”

She understood he still felt love for Daenerys but could imagine nothing more futile. He knew that, she could see. Still, it was never easy. She knew that as well as anyone. “I’m sorry,” she had said.

“Ah.” He’d winced. “I did kill her.”

“You did.”

He’d shrugged helplessly then and suggested they ride for King’s Landing before dark. The gold dragon had surprisingly decided to let her near, allowed her to mount it again, and that was all she thought about for a while.

She was a dragonrider now.

Tyrion had said so at breakfast. He’d pressed a small, folded leather satchel into her hands and told her it wasn’t urgent. That she should wait until she was alone to read it.

“It’s not because you’re a dragonrider,” he’d said.

She brushed her hand over the pocket of her borrowed jacket where she’d stashed the satchel. She wasn’t sure what he meant. She suspected he had written something to clear the air about the girl he’d murdered.

When Sansa’s dressmaker was through, they made their way to the Hand’s chamber. Most of the others were there, lounging in the hot, stale mid-afternoon air. Jaime haunted the place, pacing along the edges of the courtyard where a wall might have been if Maegor’s Holdfast hadn’t been built for King’s Landing’s warm climate.

She tried not to stare at him, tucked herself into a corner, and pretended to study the hilt of the dagger she’d borrowed from Jon. But she watched him still. His beard had grown, his hair needed a trim. Cersei’s imprisonment had put bruised shadows beneath his eyes. He spoke little during the endless negotiations. _Neither do I,_ she supposed. That was customary for her, but he was Jaime Lannister, and Jaime Lannister had a quip for everything.

The strange thing was, he never spoke when someone brought up Cersei. Oh, he paid close attention, as did Tyrion, but neither of them said a word. She couldn’t understand it. Not now.

In Winterfell, before the day they heard Daenerys lost another dragon, he’d been able to listen when they talked about conquering Cersei. He didn’t crumble when they spoke of it. It was only that last day—when it became clear Cersei faced nothing but death and ruin. Then the same misery he showed now had set in deep lines on his face. He’d ridden south to be with his sister that same night.

_She’s hateful. And so am I._

Brienne was afraid of what he might try to do to save Cersei now. Would he offer to champion her? The thought made Brienne’s blood run cold; made that old helpless fear bite at her midsection. Would she have to watch him die at last?

He didn’t speak, but he looked at her. Often. She would glance up, and there he would be, watching. They hadn’t spoken since she returned Widow’s Wail to him the day before. There was too much between them; too much history, too much hurt, too much soul-baring. Mostly hers.

Her declarations of love had made everything too awkward for conversation. He didn’t even know how to talk to her now, the one thing he’d always known how to do. She wondered if he was afraid of encouraging her infatuation. Or just embarrassed by it. Either way, they took their careful positions at opposite ends of the room.

Brienne’s ears pricked up when Daenerys mentioned something about heirs and the “unfruitful” marriage she would share with Bran. She was glad Jon wasn’t there, for his sake. He’d gone off again flying around with Robb, pretending to have something to do, had even ordered Tormund off on some task to make it seem important. Sansa said Jon had told them all he would remain in the Night’s Watch and never wed, that they needed another successor.

She watched them all turn their gazes to Gendry now instead.

“Heirs.” Gendry’s mouth twisted in a wry way at the attention. He waved his hand Brienne’s way. “You’ll have to ask my betrothed about my _legitimate_ heirs.”

Brienne made a disgusted sound and rolled her eyes. He was obviously intent on goading Arya, whose features stayed smooth as ice. So far as Brienne knew, Arya was still with child, and the child was Gendry’s. She assumed Arya had refused to wed Gendry. Again.

“Lady Brienne will not wed you,” Daenerys said.

Brienne felt her spine stiffen, gave up leaning against the wall. This was new.

Daenerys glanced at her, gave a kind smile. “Already today the crown has received several offers for your hand, Lady Brienne, and—”

“The crown has _what?”_ Sansa asked, her voice deceptively soft.

Daenerys drew a deep breath, and her eyes darted toward Sansa with scarce concealed irritation before she looked back at Brienne.

“Just this morning,” Daenerys said, “I talked to a widower who claims some acquaintance with you. Ser Hyle Hunt is—”

Brienne ground her teeth so hard she thought she might crack one. Just as well if it would make her less marriageable. She had noticed more courtiers sought her out when she went near the yards on her way to breakfast with the Starks. If a few men had been willing to accept her hand before, for the sake of Tarth and lordship of Evenfall that went with it, she could imagine many more would be eager to wed her now for the sake of her newly acquired dragon.

Sansa sniffed. “If Brienne had any interest in marrying _Hyle Hunt,_ she’d have done so years ago.”

“Have you vowed not to wed, Lady Brienne?” Bran asked in his disinterested tone. His eyes moved slowly her way.

She knew he probably knew the answer, so she was wary. It was wise to be cautious with the king. “No, your grace. But my father, on his deathbed, asked me to choose a husband for the sake of our house. I told him no. I have no intention of considering the matter again.”

“That’s not precisely how this works, Lady Brienne,” Edmure said. “When your king orders you to wed—”

“Did your king order you to wed, Uncle?” Sansa asked, her voice gentle like she was luring a wild animal into a trap. “You must tell us all for none of us were there.”

Edmure huffed. “He asked it of me. But he was right to ask. I knew my duty to my family.” He looked up at Brienne with the faint distaste he always had for her.

“This isn’t about duty,” Sansa said. “This is about ambition. And dragons.”

Daenerys narrowed her eyes. Bran smiled placidly at Sansa, unreadable.

“Yes, well,” Tyrion interjected. “This is hardly a matter which must be settled now. I think we all agree that if Jon Snow is unwilling to break his vows and wed, Lord Gendry’s line is most salient for the succession. If we all agree his line will inherit, that is all that’s necessary to conclude these talks and sign the treaties—once Lord Arryn arrives, of course. We might strike a lovely harmony if Lord Gendry were to marry a woman of King Bran’s blood to tie those lines together.”

“Mmm.” Arya’s voice was a rare sound in the chamber, but it was loud and clear now. She sat forward and looked at Sansa. “Have you chosen to wed, sister? Will you take Lord Gendry’s hand?”

Sansa scowled in a ladylike way at her sister. Tyrion went deathly quiet.

“Alas,” Arya said as she drooped back into her chair again. “It seems there will be no harmony.”

“In that case, we have several candidates for your hand as well, Lord Gendry,” Daenerys said with a smile. “We can discuss them later. And Lady Brienne, of course, your wishes will be considered when it comes to a match.”

There was steel behind the statement. Brienne heard it, and it angered her. The last time Daenerys thought to choose who she wed, she’d ended up starved and beaten in the dark for most of a year.

And the idea of marriage was intolerable. She could imagine how it would be. She would spend the rest of her life juggling the fragile pride of some man who would think she was too ugly, who would resent her for towering over him, who would eventually resent her for the dragon. Most likely, he’d be a man she could beat on the battlefield.

Men grew so petty with her when she bested them. She’d seen it all her life. She couldn’t imagine she’d find one to suit her, even if she were inclined toward marriage at all. Which she wasn’t. She didn’t want to share a bed with just anyone, couldn’t imagine she’d grow accustomed to thinking of it as a duty.

They had all simply accepted it when Jon said he wouldn’t marry. Did she need to pledge herself to the Night’s Watch to end this?

“My wishes, your grace,” Brienne said, “are to determine for myself if I will wed.”

“Of course,” Daenerys soothed, “you will take part in the choice. It is not as if we offer your hand as a tourney prize.”

Brienne bristled. “How is it different?”

“I have been a tourney prize, Lady Brienne,” Daenerys said. “I was given to the man my brother was convinced could win the iron throne. Believe me. It is different. Dragons outlive us by many lifetimes. Without new riders to care for them, they suffer, and the people suffer. We speak now of duty.”

The chamber grew still at the word duty. Half the people in the room had wed for duty at one time or another. It was part of life. While most of them probably thought it reasonable to argue a specific match, they would see little reason in her resistance to the idea of marriage altogether. Even Sansa was silent. She knew the Queen in the North would fight for her, but it was King Bran to whom Evenfall owed fealty.

“Offer me as a tourney prize, then,” Brienne said. “You’re holding a melee as part of the wedding celebration. Offer my hand. Let them fight for me.”

Daenerys shook her head, but Bran spoke before his betrothed could argue. “Is this your wish, Lady Brienne?”

“Yes,” Brienne said. Her pulse raced. _Let this work._ “The winner of the melee may have my hand. I will abide by this faithfully, so long as you agree, this will be the last time the crown interferes regarding my decision to wed.”

Daenerys half laughed. “Obviously she means to—”

“Done,” Bran said.

“I will enter the melee,” Brienne said.

“Obviously,” Bran said. His lips moved in a slight smile, and Brienne felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

The room was silent for several loaded moments. Sansa and Arya gave her worried looks. The rest looked like they thought she’d lost her wits. Perhaps she had.

“If I may, your grace,” Davos said with a cough as his kind eyes glanced briefly at Brienne, “we still haven’t discussed which lands Lord Arryn will need to forfeit to Lord Edmure.”

“Yes.” Edmure took the bait and leaned eagerly forward. “I have long thought that Wickenden...”

Brienne slumped back against the wall and released the breath she held, slow and quiet. When she looked up again, it was Jaime she saw, in the opposite corner. His eyes were clear, intent, locked on her. He wouldn’t want her to be forced into marriage. He knew how it was for women. She acknowledged him with a blink, slightly inclining her chin.

She would need to find armor. Good tourney weapons. She would need to pray that she was good enough, even at her reduced strength. She remembered her immediate fear and regret at the Eyrie, how weak she’d felt. Still, she’d survived. She’d have to do it again.

The king was to hold a grand banquet that night for the many lords and ladies who had arrived for the wedding. As the next few days would be filled with festivities the council broke early. Brienne wasn’t sure why they were dragging out negotiations. There seemed little of substance left to debate.

Brienne went to her chamber to change for the banquet, and as she undressed, her hands brushed the leather satchel Tyrion had given her. She unfolded it, opened it, and pulled out the flat, carefully written pages of parchment. It was a contract. A marriage contract. Signed.

At first, she was confused, thought Tyrion only wished her to see the offers Daenerys had spoken of.

That’s not what it was.

She’d received several offers of marriage since she became the Evenstar, but never one like this. It read more like Tyrion offered her a bride than a groom. There were lists, inventories, deeds. Properties with incomes, jewels, weapons, livestock. Even ships. And mines. The Lannisters wailed about the loss of their fortune, but their wealth was still beyond anything she’d ever imagined. The sum of gold dragons Tyrion offered alone would be enough to make hers a great house for a thousand years.

At the bottom of the pile was a personal note, in Tyrion’s own hand. It was relatively brief.

_My dearest Brienne, Lady of Evenfall, The Evenstar,_

_I write to offer you the hand of my most beloved brother Ser Jaime Lannister. I intend to dower him well._

Gods, he even wrote like he offered a bride.

_I am instructed to tell you, should you accept, that I require no allegiance of you. And that, on the event of your marriage, my brother’s loyalty would henceforward be to you and your house first—I must vow to require no allegiance of him that you would not approve. I do so vow._

_My brother has insisted that the following be written into the marriage contract: he will swear fealty to you and take a position as your consort. He will not attempt to assume lordship or usurp your authority with regard to the governance of your lands, properties, or people._

_As I’m sure you know, my brother was excluded from succession to the title of Lord of Casterly Rock several years ago by decree from King Bran. However, my brother’s heirs remain in line to inherit after me. I am warned that I must promise not to interfere in the rearing, education, or marriages of such heirs in any way. So do I vow to you now in clearly written (and, I assure you, witnessed) ink._

_I am well aware, my lady, that material gain will do little to sway you. However, I assure you my brother is not entirely impoverished. I have included lists of his properties, along with his notable inherited items, and belongings._

_I fear you may suspect me of some ulterior motive in making this offer to you. Whilst I am pleased to think of dragonriders in the family, this offer would be presented to you in precisely the same terms, even if the most exciting thing you’d ever ridden was a horse._

_Allow me to close by saying this offer was not my idea. I act, write, and speak at the direction of my brother. He wishes desperately to have you for his bride. I believe you know his motives._

_We patiently await your response._

_Ever your ally and friend,_

_Tyrion Lannister, Warden of the West, Shield of Lannisport, Lord of Casterly Rock, and Hand of the King._

Tyrion offered Jaime to her with a fortune and concessions she would never have dreamt to request from a bridegroom. For some reason, Jaime’s attempts to ransom her came to mind. Reckless. Extravagant.

Ultimately pointless.

Perhaps Jaime’s guilt went deeper than she suspected. While she wouldn’t doubt Tyrion had an interest in bringing her into the Lannister fold for the sake of the dragon, she knew Jaime would have no part in it. He could call himself hateful. She knew better.

Did he feel he owed this to her? To prove that she meant something to him? They had scarce spoken since her weeping confession in the Harrenhal baths. And he had apologized when she left his encampment, asked her forgiveness. Was this the ultimate sign of contrition? He’d fall on his sword and marry her?

Was it simply pity? Her eyes burned at the thought.

She couldn’t very well ask him. She dressed for the banquet with clumsy fingers. No doubt she looked ridiculous in her borrowed clothes, a too-short brown doublet Sansa had found, and green breeches that were nearly too tight to walk in. As she set out for the throne room where the banquet was to be held, her limbs grew agitated, jittery.

She felt a drumbeat inside her head. Some echo of her scuffle with Daenerys. And something else.

She knew what else.

Jaime would be at the banquet. She couldn’t face him. This had to be resolved first. All she had to do was talk to Tyrion. Refuse. She stopped abruptly and turned toward Maegor’s Holdfast. She rapped her knuckles against the Hand’s chamber door.

Jaime opened it. Stood there with a frown. Behind him, the chamber was near dark. Only a few torches were lit on the wall, a candelabra on the table.

“Uh, Lord Tyrion?” she stammered. She couldn’t look Jaime in the eye. He wore the same clothes as he had earlier in the day. Exhaustion showed faint purple below his eyes, his beard and hair were untrimmed. He almost looked ill, but since he was Jaime, that just made him more handsome. Her fingers itched to touch him.

He looked her over. Slow. His eyes dragged up from her feet to her face. “No. I’m the other Lannister brother. Jaime.”

She rolled her eyes. “I wish to speak to Lord Tyrion.”

Jaime stepped aside and swept his arm to invite her into the chamber, his Valyrian steel hand a sleek grey whisper as he swung it through the air. She walked in.

She noticed the flagon of wine on the table beside the candelabra. The full goblet.

“He’s not here,” Jaime said. He closed the door.

She was annoyed now. “I wish to speak to your brother on a matter of...business.”

“That’s a no, then, I take it,” he said. He swiped the goblet off the table and took a drink.

She couldn’t look at him, no matter how hard she tried. She took a few steps further into the chamber. Silly thing to do, it was the door she wanted. Escape.

“I don’t think the offer is in earnest,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder at him.

He chuckled low, callous. “I deliberately did it this way so you’d know I was in earnest. I wanted you to have parchment to hold in your hand. Something real. So you wouldn’t have to wonder if you’d imagined it.”

She drew a steadying breath. So it was pity. It was always pity. Her breath caught in her throat, but she made herself speak. “I thank you, ser, for your offer. I must decline.”

“I know.”

She flushed. “As I said, I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I _was_ serious.”

“Guilt?” she asked. There was a large window. She went to it, looked out over the Red Keep. There were fires and torches and candlelight in the courtyards and rooms below, and in the city beyond. It was beautiful in its odd way. The view was better than the memory of the Winterfell courtyard, which played at the edges of her mind.

“It wasn’t guilt,” he said. His voice had that dark, mocking edge he used like a weapon. Did he direct it at himself or at her? At them both?

“A great joke.” She crossed her arms.

“You know it’s not, Brienne.”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

“I spent weeks believing you dead. Then you walk in the door. I couldn’t even stay on my feet, my knees were so weak. And you think the first thing I would do is ask you to be my wife—what? In order to _...mock..._ you?”

She glanced at him again. He drained the goblet. She thought he almost looked like he had in Winterfell with his hair growing ragged around his ears and his beard uneven and full of grey. And his eyes, his vivid, caustic eyes that saw everything. Why did she still long to throw herself in his arms? Even when she knew how that would go.

“I’m sorry you thought me dead, I know that—” She blinked at the thought of those early days when she thought he’d perished. Almost laughed at the similarity of it. “I came here to this very chamber to see Lord Tyrion when I thought you were dead.”

“You told me about that.”

“Yes, I suppose I did,” she said. “I said a great deal that night. Not all of it needed to be said.”

“It did need to be said. I thought you just hated me for being worthless. For making you look like a fool after you vouched for my honor. I didn’t know you’d convinced yourself nothing between us was real.”

“We can’t change the past,” she said. She tried to make her voice sound like it didn’t matter. Like she wasn’t reeling from the old pain. Knowing he didn’t want her, that he regretted what they became, that he’d changed his mind, that he’d returned to his sister.

“We can’t change it,” he said, his tone rising in that odd way of his, “but we can understand it. There’s so much you don’t understand.”

She heard him pour more wine. “I understand it.”

“No, you don’t. There’s a reason you sought Tyrion out. A reason you kept searching for an answer about what we meant to each other. Because you knew it wasn’t all a lie. You knew what we were. You weren’t wrong to think we could have had a life together. You were more right than you ever knew.”

She inhaled, turned toward him. “It was just lust.”

“Lust. You think that’s all it was? Lust?” He gave her an incredulous look.

Her heart sank a bit. _The laughable suggestion that I was an object of lust._ “Circumstances were dire—”

He glared at her. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

He took a gulp of wine and dropped the goblet on the table. Shook his head sharp and turned to walk away, exhaling hard as he went as if he needed escape. He wandered halfway into the painted courtyard before he turned back, his face barely visible in the moonlight. “I wanted you. I wanted to bed you for years before I did. I still want you.”

“Yes. You wanted to bed me.” Why couldn’t her tone stay light?

“I’m not a young man. In all my long life, I’ve only been with two women, Brienne. Two. You and her.”

Her stomach lurched. “Yes, and she was the one you chose. I was almost good enough.”

“Almost good enough.” His voice was hard, his lip curled. “Is that what you think?”

“Obviously. You rode south for her. You chose her.”

He turned and took two paces away from her, further into the courtyard, then he turned and pointed down at the floor with its weathered map.

“Here,” he said. “I was here. After that spectacle with the wight in the dragonpit. After Tyrion and I ranted and pleaded with her, and she relented. She had me stand by her side while we promised to bring our armies north. To face the dead with you.”

“I—”

“I had our captains and our bannermen here. Exactly here. Planning our march north. Giving them orders. Then she walked in. Sent them out. Told me I was—”

“The stupidest Lannister,” she said. “I recall. You told me—”

His voice was like the slice of a blade. “I told you. But you don’t _know._ I stood here as she told me her half-witted, doomed plan, and I argued with her, told her it didn’t make sense. Told her it was going to get us killed. Told her I gave my word—”

“What does this—”

“All I could think, Brienne, as I stood here and fought and _begged_ was that you would be up there, facing an army of those things, waiting for me.”

“Yes,” she said, “that’s why you joined our forces. To honor your word and fight for the living. I understand.”

She wanted to see him better, so she walked to the edge of the courtyard.

“You don’t understand.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking about everybody else. I was thinking about _you_ with nothing but Valyrian steel between you and snarling death. Facing the dead, freezing, waiting until the bitter end for me to arrive. All I could think was that you were going to die alone, torn apart by those things, without me. Wondering why I never came.”

She leaned against a pillar. Stared at him, unsure—

“You’re right.” His jaw stretched tight. “I rode south for her, but—” Tension raised the veins in his neck as he looked up at her from below his brow, his eyes dark and angry.

“Brienne, I rode north for _you.”_

Her stomach dropped. She felt like she was falling again, an armor laden knight plunging into the deep.

He took two steps toward her, held out his hand. “I rode north to fight with you or die with you. She would have had to kill me to keep me from you.”

His eyes burned into her. Her palms were slick with sweat, and she felt weak like she hadn’t since those first days out of the dungeon. She had to turn away from him. She sat at the council table.

His boots rang out across the courtyard, into the chamber. He stopped a pace or two behind her. “I knew when I left you that there was no going back. I knew that was the end. But I didn’t think I was going to survive. I never thought I’d actually have to _live_ without you.”

“There is no going back,” she whispered. She rested her elbow on the table, covered her face with her hand.

“I _know,”_ he spat. “But that doesn’t mean you need to spend the rest of your life believing a lie. And I know it hurts you to hear. I know this whole conversation hurts you, and I’m sorry for it, but if you’re going to hurt, it should be for the right reason.”

She couldn’t turn. Couldn’t look at him.

His voice was full of gravel. “I knew I hurt you when I left. I tried to make you see I wasn’t worth it. I knew you cared. You used to look at me like I was a whole man. Like I was worth something, but I didn’t know that you could...I didn’t know...There’s nothing in me to love, Brienne. There never has been.”

“You think I’d have gone to bed with someone I only tolerated?” she snarled.

“No.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. Winterfell was a tumult. My whole life turned upside down and emptied out like a slop bucket. I turned my back on my house, on Cersei. I fought for Targaryens and Starks. Unthinkable. Then we survived when we shouldn’t have. And I gave in and touched you—”

“You regret touching me,” she said.

“Yes. More so now that I see what I’ve done to you. In Winterfell, I felt guilty. Unfaithful. Even though she and I were through. Even though I knew she had other men. I never strayed.”

She breathed slowly. Wished he’d stop talking for a moment as her memory dredged up the little moments. The ones that snagged and ripped at her after he left. _He regretted it. He regretted all of it, and I knew. I tried to fool myself._ “I see.”

“No, you don’t,” he spat. “You think I didn’t really want you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’d wanted you so long I was blind with it, Brienne. Mad with it. I couldn’t help myself. I felt free when I rode north, when I got to Winterfell. Then we survived. You and I were on the same side for once. We were in that frozen waste, but everything was warm and bright. I thought I could be a different man. Have a better life.”

“You could have.”

“How could I? I couldn’t live out some fantasy with you on Tarth while she died for crimes we both committed. It wasn’t right. I couldn’t bear it. I kept thinking about her dying in flames, screaming. If I hadn’t gone, the guilt would have torn me apart. Maybe she deserved that end, but I deserved it too. Why should I be the one to survive?”

She cleared her throat, sat up straight. There was more to it than that. “You went because you couldn’t live without her.”

He sighed, ragged and deep. The steps of his boots were slow as he walked around the table. She watched the sway of his shoulders, the way he squared himself to the table before he sat. Arrogant. He always made his face so arrogant when he was vulnerable. This wasn’t easy for him either, there was some small solace in that.

He sat hard in the chair and leaned forward on the table. “I could have lived without her. I had resolved to do just that. The thing I couldn’t do was let her die. Not alone. I don’t ask you to understand. And I won’t ask you to forgive me again. I don’t have the right. But, Brienne, I wanted to stay with you. I won’t deny I loved her. Some part of me still longed for her, yes, but—”

“More than part. She’s what you wanted. You’ve been with her ever since. Shared your child. Slept beside her every night.”

His laugh was brittle. “I haven’t been with her ever since. Since I met you, I can count on my fingers the times I’ve slept with her.”

_What was this?_

He held up his lone hand, slowly flexed his fingers as he stared at them, an appalled cast to his face—like he couldn’t believe it was true. Or perhaps couldn’t believe he’d admitted it.

Brienne swallowed. Her head had begun to ache. Each thought came so fast she couldn’t follow it, almost like being on dragonback shooting through the air, when all she could do was hold on.

“Why?” she asked at last.

“We rarely see one another.”

She couldn’t understand. “So, only a handful of times since Winterfell?”

His eyes blazed. “A handful of times since the riverlands, since Robb Stark’s camp, since my hand. Since Harrenhal. She and I were broken when I returned to King’s Landing. We’ve been broken since I met you. She said I changed. She hated the stump. She didn’t want me anymore.”

“You told me things changed between you.” She shook her head. “That you no longer wanted the same things, but I thought you meant after King Tommen’s death. I don’t understand.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you. You don’t understand.”

She didn’t want to meet his gaze, but she did. He stared back at her, angry and resigned. It reminded her of their first bath in Harrenhal; it reminded her of the way he told her about Aerys. Knowing she would never believe, telling her everything anyway.

“How many times since Winterfell?” she asked.

His eyes softened for a brief moment. Sorrow. Hope.

 _Don’t hope,_ she wanted to tell him. _There’s nothing to hope for._

“Once,” he said. “In Lys. I knew you and I were done, and she wanted...For a moment, I thought she and I could make a new start, but all that had always been wrong was still there between us. Worse than before. We haven’t touched since. Not since Rohanne was born.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Why?”

She held her hands out, helpless. “I imagined you happy. I thought you would at least be...happy.”

He scoffed. “Without you?”

She still wasn’t sure how she entered into it. Or where. Perhaps she did, more than she’d considered, but Cersei had always loomed so large over it all.

He was saying she was right to believe he wanted her in Winterfell, that he chose her, that he wanted a life to her.

_I rode north for you._

It explained the ransoms. The rescue. Widow’s Wail.

It brought tears to her eyes, wrapped a fist around her heart.

She placed her palms flat on the table. Pushed herself up. He seemed startled. He blinked several times as he stared up at her. She thought it must be the wine.

“None of it matters, does it?” he asked. His voice was soft now. The same tone he used when his lips whispered against her skin when he held her in his arms before they slept.

She swallowed. “Perhaps it does, but there’s no going back.”

His gaze dropped to the table. “And now you’re going to wed whichever fool wins this bloody melee.”

“I’m going to fight.”

He nodded. “I’m going to fight _for_ you.”

She was taken aback, but there was nothing left to say. She left.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jon asked him to bring a hundred of his most battle-hardened men and wait outside the city before dawn the day of the wedding. It was an odd request, but Jaime had nothing better to do, so he complied.

He wasn’t surprised to see Jon’s dragon swooping slowly above the King’s Road in the distance as the first light of dawn touched the sky. It was the giant black shape trundling along on the road below that gave him pause. So this was what Jon had spent his days doing. Escorting Drogon on foot from Harrenhal.

Giantsbane and some northerners rode beside the dragon.

Up close, Drogon still looked fearsome, perhaps more so for the useless eye that was now a milky white-blue. But Jaime could see the dragon was shaken, leary of sudden movement. He felt a pang of pity for the beast, one maimed soul to another.

“You’re mad if you think you can bring him into the city,” Jaime told Jon when he landed. “The people are unhappy enough that Daenerys is back. Angry that any dragons are here.”

“That’s why I had you bring the men,” Jon said. “You know the city.”

“You can protect us. The mighty Kingkiller,” Giantsbane said with an encouraging nod.

 _This city despises me,_ he thought, but these northerners would never understand.

Jaime shook his head, told his men to form up ranks, and escorted Drogon on foot through the Dragon Gate and up to the Dragonpit. They saw little sign of life as they went; the open sewers of King’s Landing began to simmer in the morning heat and pour forth their stench. Every door and window they passed was shut until they were long past, as if the city wished to deny their existence.

When they arrived at the Dragonpit, Jaime saw that Tyrion had been given a job as well. Hooded and cloaked, Daenerys Targaryen stood beside his brother. The woman wept openly at the sight of Drogon and flung her arms around the dragon’s face.

Brienne was there too, standing by whilst Daenerys wept. She’d been gone the day before, flown off somewhere. Mayhaps she helped Jon bring Drogon to the city.

Jon watched Daenerys with her dragon for a long moment, then led Robb away to be fed.

Jaime joined Brienne, Giantsbane, and Tyrion at the side of the pit.

Tyrion made a clucking noise. “As wedding gifts go, this will probably remain unmatched today.”

“He loves her.” Giantsbane had a knack for stating the obvious like it was a revelation.

Brienne’s voice was soft. “He told me he wanted her to see someone she loved on her wedding day.

Tyrion whistled low. “Poor hopeless besotted fool. Even this will not sway her.”

Jaime was annoyed. “He knows that. He’s not trying to sway her. He just wants her to be happy.”

Brienne left then, turned toward the pens. To see her own dragon, he imagined. Giantsbane followed her, and Jaime tried not to notice or care.

Tyrion looked up at him with a faintly puzzled expression.

He was in no mood for his brother. “What?”

Tyrion just rubbed his hand over his mouth and shook his head.

Jaime knew it was about Brienne. Lately, it seemed every unspoken moment between the brothers was about Brienne. His brother had been sympathetic, if not surprised, that she refused to marry him. Not that Jaime had been surprised himself, though after she left him alone in Tyrion’s chambers, he realized he’d had more hope than he thought.

She had been gentle about it. Told him she’d thought that he was happy, said it in a way that felt like a blade to the heart. He didn’t deserve a life with her. He never had.

Not that he thought anyone else did either. The melee would be held in three days. He’d entered. So had Jon, Pod, Gendry, Giantsbane, and even Bronn.

A one-handed swordsman would be the joke of the competition, Jaime knew that, but he didn’t care.

Daenerys bid goodbye to Drogon, and Jaime returned to the Red Keep with the rest of her escort. Brienne avoided him.

By the time Tyrion’s manservants had bathed, groomed, and dressed him for the thrice-damned wedding, it was midday. The ceremony took most of the afternoon.

Rohanne was tired of the pageantry within moments and tried to climb up his arm before the High Septon had even begun to speak. She’d only been in a sept once before, when he’d held Casterly Rock’s septon at swordpoint so she could be named in the light of the Seven after they returned from Lys. He might have wondered what _The Seven-Pointed Star_ had to say about holding children responsible for the sins of their parents, but he didn’t believe in the gods anyway.

Most of Westeros was in attendance. The Prince of Dorne arrived and embraced everyone like long lost cousins despite the fact that he had wisely sat neutral throughout the war and had done little for them besides provide some fruit. When smarmy Robert Arryn had the nerve to stand beside Sansa at the front of the crowd, Jaime could practically see the steam rising off Tyrion.

Jon stood quietly in the back at Jaime’s side, as did Bronn and Giantsbane.

The High Septon droned, and Bronn made off-color remarks whilst Rohanne grew more mischievous in her boredom, but Jaime’s eyes were only for Brienne.

She stood stiff and proud at the front of the sept in a place of honor with the Starks. She wore an embroidered blue silk doublet and over it, a cloak quartered in azure and rose—the arms of her house. No seamstress or tailor could have produced the cloak in only a few days. It had to be her own, the clothes as well. She had returned to Tarth.

He didn’t know why the thought gave him a chill, but it did. Perhaps it was merely the knowledge that she would return to her island soon, just as he and Ro would sail for the Rock within a fortnight. They would return to their homes on opposite sides of Westeros, and the gods only knew if they would ever see one another again.

She had said there was no going back. And he knew that. He did. Had known it for years. Still, the finality of it was an ache he felt in his bones.

There was a rustle of whispers through the sept as they reached the point of exchanging cloaks. Daenerys took the Stark cloak from Bran’s lap and draped it around her own shoulders. Jaime felt Jon tense beside him and gave the man a sympathetic glance.

When he glanced back toward the front, he caught Cersei’s eye, for his sister, inexplicably, was also in attendance.

Well, it was explicable. He’d been present for the explanation. Daenerys and Yara pleaded mercy for his sister. A life of imprisonment. He and Tyrion hadn’t had to say a word. Sansa had, to the astonishment of all, agreed with them. Which put the whole thing to rest. Within a day, Cersei was given lovely apartments she was free to roam. She’d even been invited to attend some feasts, though only when surrounded by a dozen guards.

“I know why you and I keep giving her second chances,” Tyrion had said the night Cersei was sentenced. “But how do you explain the rest of them?”

“Sansa didn’t tell you why?” he’d asked.

Tyrion had grunted. “Says it suits her.”

Jaime had shaken his head. “They must want to kill her or trap her. Something. Maybe trap us too.”

Tyrion had only shrugged.

The king no longer executed people. The Starks had some blather about executions, something about passing sentences and swinging swords. Bran couldn’t swing a sword.

Still, Jaime had been sure there would be an exception for Cersei.

The throne room was a relief after the heat and crush of the sept. Rebuilt of the same stone as the original Red Keep, the new building had high doors and windows that opened onto terraces offering a breeze, and the upper galleries opened onto long airy balconies of their own.

Daenerys and Bran waited on the short dais at the end of the room to be greeted by their subjects. Rohanne shied a bit from stares, half hiding behind his leg.

She wasn’t the only shy one. Jaime watched Brienne try to hide at the edge of the room. He couldn’t blame her. People pointed at her and openly stared. Men. They all planned to enter the melee because they all wanted her bloody dragon. None of them understood or appreciated the woman who came with it.

She was damned good with a sword and knew how to survive a battle, but a melee was a different sort of fight. Every man, or woman, fighting for themself made for chaos. She’d entered melees before—even won them, but she’d been younger then, and at full strength.

Most of the men would want to vanquish her, dominate her, show themselves to be her superior in battle. The thought of any of them touching her made him sick.

There was a sudden stir in the crowd, and Rohanne hid behind him almost completely but peeped out to watch the dais. He looked up to see what troubled her.

Cersei approached the king and queen, flanked by her two red priestess friends. Her curtsey was shallow, and whatever she said made Daenerys give Bran a sharp look. Sansa would enjoy that.

Jaime grasped Rohanne by the hand, then made his way closer to hear what was said.

“Peace was my greatest hope,” Cersei was saying. “My only wish now is to retire to my birthplace, to quietly live out my days there, with my only child.”

Ro gripped his leg tight at that. He patted her head.

Daenerys blinked with regal disdain. “You have already been shown _great_ mercy. Your child is permitted to visit you here, thanks to the kindness of the king.”

He watched Cersei struggle to contain her outrage. Her face was pleasant enough, but he could see how the muscles around her mouth warred with her desire to keep a hint of a smile there.

“You have seen my child,” Cersei said. “She will be uncomfortable at court. People can be cruel.”

Said child yanked on Jaime’s belt, and he picked her up. She buried her face in his neck, her arms tight enough to choke. He was about to leave with her when Cersei went on.

“A hostage could be left in my place,” Cersei said. “Someone dear to me.”

Jaime knew before she said it. He froze and waited for her to say the words.

Cersei lifted one eyebrow. “One of my brothers, perhaps?”

Daenerys’s eyes fairly glinted with rage.

Bran gave almost no reaction. “Should they choose to do so, Lady Cersei, I will permit one of your brothers to spend their lives as a hostage in your place.”

Tyrion stood off to the side of the dais; he caught Jaime’s eye. Jaime shook his head but knew it was pointless when he saw the resigned look on his little brother’s face.

Everywhere he looked, people stared as he turned to leave with Rohanne. Then he saw Brienne. She stared at the floor. Jon stood beside her. He looked up at Jaime, gave him a smile that was more of a grimace.

Jaime knew Jon was thinking about love and reason. That’s what they were all thinking, if not in those precise words.

Jaime Lannister had never been known for his reason.

He took Rohanne out onto the terrace.

“Will I go with Mother to the Rock?” she asked into the shoulder of his gambeson.

“You stay with me,” he said.

The sun and breeze off the bay eventually lured her out of her melancholy. He put her down so she could play; he watched her weave her way around the slender trees planted in boxes along the balustrade.

The feast began after sunset. The air filled with the extravagance of it: duck in blood orange sauce, lamb roasted rare with cloves and honey, red salmon with ginger and lemongrass. Tyrion and Jaime had been relegated to the second table. The only house paramount besides Bronn’s to receive the snub—though not all the Lannisters were treated to the same.

Cersei was seated at a much lower table with the red priests and priestesses, surrounded by her guards. The Red God’s religion had won the right to build red temples in every one of the six kingdoms in exchange for not killing anyone with shadows.

Rohanne, on the other hand, had been invited to sit between Arya and Sansa at the high table on the dais, with the Starks, Tullys, Robert Arryn, the Prince of Dorne, and Gendry. The groom’s family was all at the high table, save for Jon. Ro had been given the seat intended for Brienne, who had refused the conspicuous place of honor by simply plopping down beside Jon at the second table and refusing to move.

Brienne looked almost distraught. She sat across the table and two seats down. Other women wore tiaras and jewels, but she wore only the black leather cord he’d given her around her throat and her signet ring, which was back on her finger, where it belonged. Her father’s sword was once more strapped around her waist.

“We live rough and send our men to the slaughter, fight their war for over a year, and this is the thanks we get,” Bronn said. “Seated at the second table.”

Davos sat beside Jaime and raised a cup of ale at Bronn. “Still, the second table at the king’s feast is not a bad reward for a couple of lads from common stock.”

Bronn scowled. “What reward? Great high lord Edmure gets more lands. I use my coin to feed and pay my men to liberate his precious riverlands for nothing.”

Brienne thunked down her goblet. “You fight for honor, not a reward.”

“I don’t like the taste of honor,” Bronn grumped at her. “You got a dragon out of it. What do the rest of us get? The Lannisters have to rebuild for themselves. Snow has to go back to the Wall—”

“I’m happy to return to the Wall,” Jon cut in. “It’s where I belong. I’m a man of the Night’s Watch.”

Bronn laughed in his face. “The Night King and his armies are gone. So what exactly do you _watch_ on your wall at night? The last sixteen wildlings frolicking in the snow?”

Giantsbane roared. “There are hundreds of Free Folk still!”

“Apologies to you, my big friend,” Bronn said. He lifted his cup to Giantsbane, who nodded and toasted him back. But Bronn wasn’t finished. “What about the reward the king gave to Jaime _fucking_ Lannister? It’s a disgrace.”

Jaime had been trying to eat while Bronn ranted. He looked up slowly. Every eye at the table turned his way. Except Brienne’s. She stared determinedly down at her plate.

Davos cleared his throat. “Ser Jaime may not take a dim view of the matter.”

“His view of it ought to be dim,” Bronn groused into his cup.

Jaime looked down at Tyrion. His brother wouldn’t meet his eye.

“It seems everyone knows my mind better than I,” Jaime said, sick of them talking about him as if he wasn’t even there.

Brienne did look up then. Just for an instant. Her eyes sliced his way, then were gone again.

Tyrion twitched.

Jaime choked down a bit more food. The wine had gone from sweet to vinegar in his mouth. The meal stretched until servants brought out cakes and puddings, and the musicians began to play louder to match the increasingly merry din of the guests. He finally looked up from his plate. Ro was asleep at the high table, slumped against Sansa’s arm. He left his table without a word to anyone.

When he picked up Rohanne, Sansa frowned at him. “She was no trouble. I promised she could stay until the lemon cakes arrived.”

“Save her one,” he said.

“I will.” She placed a gentle hand on Ro’s back. Sansa looked younger, vulnerable. “Don’t— Jaime. Please, don’t leave her at Cersei’s mercy.”

He sucked in a breath, hugged Ro close. “She stays with me.”

Sansa watched him for a moment, then nodded.

Jaime climbed the steps to the gallery overlooking the throne room flanked by Ro’s guards. As he walked toward the door against the far wall, he looked down at the dozens of trestle tables full of wedding guests. The red table stood out. Cersei sat in profile and watched him, wildfire banked in her eyes. He held Ro fast to his shoulder and stared back at his sister while she quirked her lips into a tight smile.

She knew he would be angry. The almost smug slant of her jaw said she knew how to be patient, how to pluck the strings slowly to make him step to her tune.

But he didn’t dance for her anymore.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Brienne was tired of the wedding. Tired of the feast. Tired of the guests. Tired of the way men looked at her. She could read the looks on their faces. It was a look she’d seen before. A man wondering if he could stomach bedding her for the rest of his life in order to claim the prizes that came with her hand in marriage.

“I’ve never seen a melee,” Jon said as he looked over the uneaten food on her plate. “Can you win?”

She sighed as she shoved a piece of duck around with her dagger. “I have before.”

“You were stronger then?” Tormund asked from across the table.

Brienne looked up at him. He wasn’t trying to be unkind, he was genuinely asking. She shrugged. “Probably.”

“You’re still bloody strong,” Tormund said. He gave her a smirking smile.

She ran her thumb over the coat of arms on her ring. It almost fit right again.

“Do you have a strategy in mind, my lady?” Davos asked.

“Win.”

Bronn chuckled. “Too bad you can’t use your Valyrian steel. Or the dragon. You’d be sure to win that way.”

“As you might suspect, I’ve never fought in a melee,” Tyrion said, “so I have no advice to offer, save that you’ll be more likely to win if you eat your meat.”

She tried to smile. Her appetite was gone.

Jaime had gone quiet, then fled, after Bronn brought up Cersei’s request to have a hostage replace her. She’d seen his face when Cersei first made her outrageous request.

He’d arrived at the wedding looking fresh, the worry that blotted his face when she first arrived somewhat alleviated. His hair trimmed short, his face clean-shaven, he’d looked good. Too good. Handsome was never an adequate word for Jaime. No grey in his hair or line on his face could dim his beauty. She wanted him more each time she saw him.

Tormund and Bronn were discussing morning stars, so she took her chance. She mumbled something about fresh air, rose, and left the table. When she walked out onto the terrace, there were many guests milling about, so she climbed a stair to the upper-level gallery and slipped out an alcove door to the long balcony that ran high above the Red Keep. It was deserted. The wind came off the water and was almost fresh as she stood at the rail and stared out at the bay.

“Lady Brienne.”

Tyrion’s step was light as he approached.

“Lord Tyrion,” she greeted him in return. The brief respite she’d found in the breeze vanished. She’d seen him several times over the past few days, but this was the first time they’d been alone.

“I hear you’re not to become my sister, as I’d hoped.”

She gritted her teeth. “I thank you for your kind offer. I meant to answer you in person, but—”

“You found my brother instead,” he said.

“Yes,” she ground out.

“It sounds like you still want to kill me,” Tyrion said, his tone was light, but there was an edge to it.

“I never wanted to kill you,” she said. “So long as you never harm a hair on her grace’s head. If you do, there will be nowhere safe for you to hide. Not the Red Keep. Not Casterly Rock. Not Essos—”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be sure to consult with the shade of Stannis Baratheon for the particulars, but I feel I have the gist.” He smacked his hands hard on the balcony rail. Something in the gesture reminded her of Jaime. “I’d never hurt her, Brienne.”

“I’m sure you’ve said that before,” she said.

His laugh was dark. “Believe it or not, this is why I like you. You should give her grace some credit, though, she dealt fairly handily with her last husband.”

“That is not the same.” Brienne looked down at him. Gave him a glare. She saw how his chin tipped up, full of Lannister pride. That was like Jaime too. More arrogant, the weaker he felt. It made her soften toward him just a bit. “So long as you and I understand one another.”

“It’s not the same, you’re right,” he said. “I assure you, we do understand one another. And in more than just this.”

She almost groaned.

“I saw your face when Cersei made her request of the king,” Tyrion said.

Brienne didn’t want to talk to Tyrion about that. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. She tried to change the subject. “It is nigh impossible to believe she is alive to make requests of anyone.”

Tyrion chuckled. “It _is_ nigh impossible to believe. I agree.”

Brienne had wondered why Cersei was allowed to live and asked the Stark sisters when they were alone in Sansa’s apartments. Sansa had laughed when Brienne asked and said, “We are sworn to secrecy. Bran told Daenerys that Cersei can’t help them if they execute her. Daenerys said she wanted Cersei to die anyway and Bran said, ‘Vengeance won’t get you what you want.’ Then Daenerys said she could live. It was madness.”

Being sworn to secrecy never meant to Sansa what it meant to most people.

“But why did you go along with it?” Brienne had asked her.

Arya had chuckled a bit. “Cersei and Daenerys sharing the Red Keep? Exasperating and distracting one another? Why wouldn’t Sansa go along with it?”

Sansa had barely bit back her smile.

It was Tyrion who barely bit back a smile now. “Cersei has always been somewhat immune to consequences. It’s those around her who suffer.”

Jaime.

She didn’t want to think about it. It had nothing to do with her. He’d given his heart to Cersei long before she knew him, and it would remain Cersei’s, no matter which small parts he shared with her.

“Some of them prefer to suffer,” she said. But there was no bite in her words. Jaime had said too much to her in the Hand’s chambers, she couldn’t look at it the same way she had after Winterfell.

_She would have had to kill me to keep me from you._

Tyrion nodded. “Yes. Once. I thought it would be so for eternity, but I have had cause to think again.”

“A guilt-laden marriage proposal is no reason to think again.” She knew what Tyrion was about, and she meant to thwart him.

He puffed his cheeks out and released a long breath. “I suspect he feels a great deal of guilt. But he wants to wed you.”

“It hardly matters now,” she said. “You know he’ll grant her the freedom she craves.”

“He may.”

“Then why are you talking to me about it?”

“Because he’s in love with you,” Tyrion said.

She felt his words like a thousand stinging little arrows to the chest.

“No. He’s not.”

Tyrion tsked. “I confess I thought the same for a long while. In Winterfell, I thought he may love you. He was so happy. But then after...Well, I decided you must have been a welcome distraction—”

“Yes.”

“No.” He shook his head slow. “He’s all mixed up about love, I think. To him, it’s something tainted. He can’t associate you with it, or you’d be tainted too.”

She was afraid to talk for the lump of shame in her throat, so she only shook her head.

“I began to suspect he was in love with you after he rescued you.” Tyrion swept his hand across the rail. “I didn’t find a whole man in Lys, Brienne. He was wasted, still ill from his wounds, prone to the occasional fever. I think he only survived because he was afraid Ro would die if he didn’t. He was probably right.”

Tyrion’s tone turned wistful. “I took him back to the Rock and made him my regent. He just existed. I thought it was because he felt reduced. After all, he should have been Lord of the Rock, he’d been Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, effectively master of war, after so much power, to simply play second-in-command to your little brother...”

“He doesn’t care about power,” Brienne said.

“I know.” Tyrion’s voice was full of wry amusement. “It was simply the best explanation I could find. Until he rescued you. He changed. He’s alive with you near. And then he thought you were dead. He collapsed to the floor when Jon told him you were truly lost. Wept like a babe. Looked like a dead man. Well, you saw him when you arrived.”

“He was concerned for Cersei—”

“No, no, no,” Tyrion soothed. “It was you. All for you.”

“No.” She shook her head. Couldn’t say more.

Tyrion sighed. “I resolved not to interfere. Who can blame you for wanting nothing further to do with him? Not I. But I saw your face just now. You still worry for him.”

“Of course,” she whispered. “As would anyone.”

“No. Not just anyone.” Tyrion took a deep breath. “Were you my daughter or my sister, I would tell you to walk away from him and never look back. I know how he hurt you. You’ll probably never be free of the fear that he’d do the same again.”

“No,” she breathed.

“You would be a fool not to question it. Still, I begin to wonder if you’re more miserable without him than you would be with him?”

She took a breath. Steadied herself. “He’ll always step between her and danger. He’s faced down dragons for her.”

“Yes. He does that. Heroic fool. He’s the kind of man who jumps between the woman he loves and a death-dealing monster. Like a dragon. Or perhaps a bear.”

She swallowed.

“I will leave you to your thoughts,” Tyrion said.

Brienne’s thoughts were tricky. They danced in and out of her grasp as the night wore on.


	12. Chapter 12

The day of the melee dawned hot. Brienne looked at her armor and knew she would roast alive in it before the day was done. Perhaps the heat was a good thing; it might sap some of the tension from her.

The Kingsguard all shared a large pavilion beside the tourney grounds. Pod’s Brothers made themselves scarce after she entered. Pod lent her the use of his squires, and the two of them stood side-by-side as they were dressed for battle.

“I’ve still never seen you fight in a tourney, my lady,” Pod said. He gently corrected the squire strapping on her pauldrons. 

It came as little surprise that he was better to his squires than she’d ever been to him. She mustered up a smile for him. 

“Nor I you, Pod.”

Pod hadn’t participated in the lists the past few days. She doubted he’d ever been taught much about the joust. She certainly hadn’t taught him. Not that she was an expert herself. 

He grinned at her. “I doubt you’ll have time to watch me much today. Now that you have the dragon, you can fly to my next tourney, my lady.”

She smiled. Perhaps she would. Provided her bravado didn’t do her in. She tried not to think what would happen if she lost to some man and had to wed him or, worse, obey him. 

The melee had seemed like the right solution a few days before, but now that the day had come, she felt like a fool.

They were called out to the tourney grounds where all signs of the joust had been cleared away, and barricades had been set to contain the battle that would unfold. 

The grounds had been used as the lists during the joust. The scent of horse manure was still pungent beneath their feet, rivaled only by the sweltering sewer stench of the city and the unwelcome tang of hundreds of men sweating beneath steel plate armor. Thankfully the tourney grounds were too small for a mounted melee. She always hated to see horses maimed and killed for nothing but sport.

Bronn had joked the night before that every man within twenty leagues of King’s Landing who could lay claim to a suit of armor and a coat of arms had entered. Looking about her, she thought that was true. Squires and green boys, old men, incomplete suits of armor, dirty faces. There were three armies camped outside the gates, and they’d produced every fighting man with no wife who could claim a whiff of noble blood.

Bronn was there; he’d said he would be. Gendry was a surprise, as was Jon—they were off to one side. She’d begun to suspect Tormund had entered after he complained about the concept of blunted tourney weapons at great length two days before. He stood now in the middle of the throng, spinning in a slow circle. Even Edmure Tully was there, which was odd as he was married and loathed Brienne. She nodded to each of them in turn as she met their gazes and did the same with other men she knew.

Then she saw Jaime.

He wore his trusted battle armor, black with burnished golds and deep red. His face was a mask of arrogant disdain, but it faltered for a moment when he saw her. His gaze traveled slow from her feet to her face and back again. A brief flicker of warmth shown in his eyes.

She wore her blue armor. She’d returned to Tarth for it before the wedding. Oathkeeper as well. She’d stashed the sword in the chest at the foot of her bed in the Red Keep, almost afraid Jaime would think it some kind of message if he saw her wear it again.

She had little choice about the armor as her new plate lay strewn along the floor of the God’s Eye.

Daenerys called a message of good luck out to the contestants. Brienne doubted it extended to her. 

Then, with the beat of a drum, the melee began. 

The first few minutes passed in a blur. Pod fought by her side, then guarded her back. A melee was a peculiar beast. Factions tended to form, whether pre-determined or not, and men would fight in groups large and small to make it past the initial rush.

Brienne was occupied fighting opponent after opponent, but she kept catching glimpses of Jaime out of the corner of her eye. He was a target. A famous name. Many men in the throng would gladly brag to their friends over a cup of ale that they’d bested the mighty Kingslayer, even if he only had one hand at the time.

She realized Bronn, Jon, and Gendry were slowly collapsing on Jaime’s position, circling round as they saw him under heavy attack. 

Likewise, Tormund and Edmure joined her and Pod; the four of them formed a sort of box so they wouldn’t have to guard their backs.

Brienne faced an old man who looked tired and almost grateful when she forced him to his knees and asked him to yield.

It was a curious thing battering a man with a sword rather than slicing him open with it. The blunted tourney weapons could draw blood, but it was usually from the crush of blunt force. 

That was why the melee favored the strong.

She’d extracted five forfeits by the time she realized the small group she was in had somehow drifted and joined Jaime’s. By her best guess, at least half the field had been cleared.

Edmure cried “yield” to an ironborn man. 

She swiped the sweat out of her eyes with the back of her hand and brought up her sword to meet the next foe. A young man, big, taller even than she. He knew who she was; that much was obvious. He moved in quick, intent on pummeling her into submission. She danced around him and began to land blows, but he didn’t seem to tire. Finally, she took an opening and butted his head with her own. Laid him flat. The crowd roared. The fellow yielded, but she was gasping and was grateful when Pod stepped in to take the next opponent who came for her.

After that, she found herself somehow inside the ring of men she knew. She looked around slowly at them as she caught her breath, as the cheers of the crowd echoed in her ears, and realized they’d done it intentionally. Ringed her in. They’d had a strategy. 

Afraid their intent to protect her would be too obvious and draw joint assault from the outset, they’d waited and collapsed together slowly so that when the best competitors emerged from the mass, it would be too late for anyone else to form a group assault. No one needed to tell her whose strategy it had been.

She was impressed. And outraged. 

For a moment, she watched the strategist. Though she’d seen Jaime fight briefly at Harrenhal, she hadn’t appreciated how he had learned to use his Valyrian steel hand. He would catch and hold men’s blades with it whilst he battered them. It was effective.

Just then, Gendry yielded to a northern lord. The crowd wailed at that, unhappy.

She stepped out of the circle to claim an opponent for herself. And finished him, and then another. Soon enough, it was only their group left. Bronn fought briefly with Tormund, then yielded. Pod yielded to Jaime. Brienne turned to Jon, who gave her a small smile as he let her land a blow. He yielded. 

Tormund and Jaime faced off and traded serious blows for a few moments before Tormund lost his step. The big man winked at her as he yielded. Jaime rolled his eyes, then turned her way.

She swallowed and raised her sword. He gave her a sneer and raised his. 

Then he came at her. 

At first, she thought that he meant to beat her. And she felt a thrill of something, almost triumph.

She was tired, but he was no match for her. Throughout the melee, she’d seen him use his Valyrian steel hand to his advantage. She never gave him the chance with her. After the sixth or seventh time their blades clashed, she realized he wasn’t trying to win. There were times he could have pressed an advantage but didn’t. 

He just wanted it to look good. To make her victory seem earned. She made a move to disarm him. He readily dropped his sword. 

She let her sword arm fall to her side whilst she stared at him. Had she wanted him to fight in earnest? To beat her? The thought was ludicrous.

He held her gaze, blinked slow, then dropped to his knees. 

“I yield,” he said.

If the crowd knew he surrendered too easily, they showed no sign of it. She received shouts and cheers. Daenerys looked outraged as she stood before the king’s stand. Bran’s placid face seemed unsurprised.

Sansa swept Brienne away from the tourney grounds and back to the Red Keep to have her bruises tended by a maester. As she left, she nodded to those who’d helped her—her friends, she supposed. They all seemed pleased with themselves. Pod, Jon, Gendry, Bronn, Tormund, even Edmure. 

And Jaime.

He looked at her with an angry smile in his eyes. She didn’t know what he meant by it.

That night the king and queen hosted the final feast of the wedding celebrations. The mood was raucous in the throne room. Brienne sat at a quiet side table with Jon and Tormund. They’d all bathed and changed, but still wore the marks of battle in bruises and split lips.

“It was Lannister’s idea,” Tormund told her when she asked about the melee strategy.

She nodded along.

Jon gave her a small smile when Tormund was distracted by an acquaintance. 

“He knew you’d never agree to it,” Jon said, his voice pitched low so only she could hear.

Her eyes sought Jaime out across the room. He sat with Tyrion, Rohanne, and some lords from the Westerlands. As if she’d called out to him, he looked up at her. He had a black eye. Stubble grazed his jaw and dusted his cheeks. All he wore was a simple black linen tunic over grey breeches, but he looked more a lord than any man in the city.

The gods never made a more beautiful creature than Jaime Lannister. And when he looked at her with his narrowed gaze, she could almost feel his hands on her skin.

She turned away and smiled at Jon. “I wouldn’t have agreed. But I’m grateful.”

As the feast wore on, she worked her way around the room to say her goodbyes, say her thanks. She would depart for Tarth in the morning on the gold’s back.

She found Gendry and Arya leaning against a rail on the upper gallery. When Arya said perhaps they would see her at Storm’s End, she’d had to bite back a smile.

She walked out onto the gallery balcony for a breath of fresh air, then turned back to one of the alcove doors.

“My lady.” 

Hyle Hunt stood framed there in the torchlight spilling through the doorway.

“Ser Hyle,” she said. The nod she gave him was very slight. She’d seen him in the melee; he must have yielded early on.

“I hoped to win you today,” Hyle said. 

“Ah.”

Hyle smiled. “Perhaps you hadn’t heard I’m a widower.”

“I heard. My condolences.”

“I never really cared for her,” Hyle said.

The faintest snort came from the next alcove door over, and Brienne knew who she’d find there before she let her eyes dart his way. 

Jaime leaned against the stone of the door frame, arms crossed, face full of derision. Hyle couldn’t see him.

“Poor lady,” Brienne said. 

“Lord Bronn orders us to start our march back to the Reach tomorrow,” Hyle said. “I could not leave without asking for your hand once more.”

She couldn’t look at Jaime. She could hear his smirk.

“I thank you, ser, but I must—”

“We would suit, Brienne,” he said. “I always thought so. I don’t mind the breeches and the swords. I still recall the taste of your kiss, the way you clung to me. We would suit in the bedroom too.”

Jaime moved. Uncrossed his arms, took half a step. She glared at him for an instant to stop him, then looked at Hyle.

“We wouldn’t suit.”

Hyle shook his head. “Won’t you forgive the folly of youth? We were thoughtless boys with a stupid joke gone too far. I really did want to carry you back to my castle.”

She remembered a bit of the shame she felt in her father’s ballroom all those years ago, but at the moment, Jaime bristled with barely leashed rage, and she didn’t want some silly incident over an imagined insult to her honor. Not after everything else that had happened that day.

“You don’t have a castle,” she told Hyle. “I thank you, but I have no wish to carry you to mine. We would never suit.”

Hyle nodded; his nostrils flared. He gave her a curt nod, then left.

Jaime leaned out the doorway to peek after Hyle as he went. “Is he a foot shorter than you?”

Brienne rolled her eyes and went back to the balcony rail.

“I can’t think why you wouldn’t want to carry that fair prince back to your castle,” Jaime drawled as he leaned a hip on the rail beside her. “Dull brown hair, dull brown beard, dull brown clothes, pasty pale face—”

“Enough,” Brienne said.

“I’ve barely begun.”

“I know.” She glanced over at him. He was so exasperating, but then he looked at her like _that—_ brow heavy, eyes piercing.

“You were made for moonlight,” he said.

Her breath caught, but she made herself ignore it. He didn’t mean it like _that._ No one liked the look of her in any circumstance.

“Probably.” She tried to keep her tone light. “I’m much uglier in daylight.”

He scowled. “Do you keep a list of all my sins, or—”

“Thank you. For the melee.”

“You don’t want to thank me. What you’d like to do is stab me.”

She nodded. “Both. Thank you and stab you.”

He shrugged. “You’re free. That’s all I wanted.”

“Thank you, ser.”

That made him turn away as if he didn’t want sincere thanks.

“I hear,” he said starting and stopping then starting again, almost uncertain. “I hear you leave on the morrow.”

“Yes.”

He took a long slow breath. “Will we ever see one another again?”

Her heart jolted in her chest. Would they? It was difficult to remember that only a year before she’d hoped she would never have to see him again. But now...

Silence settled over the balcony. A thousand words simmered unspoken between them. 

“I— Well—” She paused, cleared her throat. “I shall have to return to King’s Landing sometime.”

He stared at her. “I won’t be here, Brienne.”

She looked out at the water and nodded. Let him believe it for now. Let him think he could be a different man.

He moved to go, and she almost put her hand out to stop him. Instead, she gripped the rail harder.

“Farewell, Brienne of Tarth,” he said.

“Farewell,” she whispered. She glanced at him. He searched her face. Then he turned and left.

The night was dark; the world fuzzed through the tears in her eyes. She didn’t know how long she stood there watching the stars over the water, but the music in the throne room had grown very loud by the time she decided to return to the revelry.

She walked into the curtained alcove where Ser Hyle had stood, but stopped as she entered. Arms crossed, Jaime leaned against the velvet curtains that led to the gallery. He watched the throne room below the gallery rail, his face grim. 

He didn’t move when she entered, but his eyes flicked her way briefly, then he looked back at the merrymakers on the floor below as they danced and drank.

Was he thinking about Cersei? Had he realized he was going to stay, trade his freedom for hers?

She took a step toward him. He closed his eyes and leaned his temple against the stone arch of the open doorway. She took another step; his chin tightened.

Still half a step behind him, she stopped. He didn’t want her there, that was plain.

_Leave him alone,_ she told herself. _Go._

Finally, he turned to look at her. His eyes were glassy in the torchlight, wary as he took her in. Any pretense between them was gone, like his walls had crumbled.

“They told me you were _dead,”_ he said, voice low, a rumble like distant thunder. Her heart beat to the rhythm of it.

She closed the distance between them. Stood close. “I was shivering in the rain, throwing rocks in the God’s Eye.”

He looked murderous at that. His eyes shone as he glared at her. Veins stood out on his neck.

She felt herself sneer and ignored the lump in her throat. “They told me _you_ were dead.”

He huffed out a breath, and closed his eyes again, ran his hand over his face. He began to nod as he looked at the floor, then he took a step away from the curtain. She turned to follow him, put her hand on his arm. He made a sound in his chest at her touch. Stared at her hand.

She could move her hand. Take it back. She should.

She didn’t.

He advanced toward her. She took half a step back, gripped his arm tighter. The velvet brushed her shoulders as she backed through it into the small darkened space between the curtain and the wall.

Jaime stepped through the curtains; they shushed closed behind him. 

She brought her hands to his face as her shoulders bumped the stone wall behind her. Her fingertips caught fire as they skimmed along his neck, his chin, his cheeks. His lashes fluttered closed for a moment at her touch, a delicate movement at odds with the angry tension that set his jaw like stone. When he opened his eyes again, they were black in the scant light. Deadly.

He pressed her back into the wall as her lips found his. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threaded her fingers into his hair as he deepened the kiss. His right arm slung low around her back, the unyielding cold of his Valyrian steel hand welcome in the heated space as he pulled her into him.

His lips were on her jaw, then his teeth were on her neck. The rasp of his midnight stubble against her sensitive skin drew a small moan from her lips. Every touch sent lightning straight to her core.

“I want you,” she whispered into his temple, and he inhaled sharply in reply.

Madness. Everyone was in the throne room below. Just beyond the velvet. Anyone could walk by.

He kissed her breast, took her nipple into his mouth through her tunic. Her thighs quaked. She cupped him through his breeches, and he groaned against her breast. 

Fingers shaking, she worked at the laces of her breeches. He sank to his knees, and she whimpered at the loss of his warmth, the pressure of his body against hers, but then he was pulling her breeches down. They pooled around her knees; he leaned his forehead against the hair at the apex of her thighs. 

His breath on her skin made her throw her head back; his hand ran slowly up her leg. He kissed her hip, the crease of her thigh, and she swallowed her cries. His fingers brushed her wet folds. And his tongue—

His right arm hooked behind her hips, pulled her into his mouth, as he closed his lips over her—sucked. Her knees went weak; he groaned against her. She scrabbled for purchase on the stone, grabbed an empty iron sconce with one hand, and prayed it would hold as he slipped a finger inside her and curled it.

She turned her cheek against the hard stone wall and fought to bite back the sounds that wanted to pour out of her as he took her with his mouth. The whole of Westeros feasted and drank a few paces away, and Jaime Lannister had his mouth on her cunt.

_Foolish choice. Foolish girl._ But she wanted it so much.

Fingers fisted in his hair, she bit back a scream as she came. He stayed with her, held her up as her legs shuddered. Then he slid his hand up and down her leg, rested his head against her abdomen. She grabbed at his shoulders, tried to pull him up, bring him closer, but he shook his head and drew her breeches back up her legs.

“What?” Her feeble fingers grasped her breeches as he stood.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

“I—”

“I won’t hurt you anymore.” He turned to go.

“Don’t you want...” She realized how pathetic she was, stood there holding her breeches, begging a man to fuck her.

As if she hadn’t begged this man enough.

He looked back, harsh, leaned his hand against the wall as he glared into her eyes. “Of course I want—”

“Then—”

“Who cares what I want?”

She swallowed. “Me.”

He shook his head, brushed his temple briefly against hers, then left.

Brienne stood there. Alone. Her breath still short. Sweat dripped down her back, matted her hairline. She was still wet and aching between her thighs. Her clumsy fingers pulled her laces closed, and she went back out on the balcony for fresh air. She stood at the rail and looked out at the bay. 

Jaime had been in her arms, and she’d lost him. Or let him go. 

She glanced down at movement on the terrace below and saw the two figures nearly hidden in the shadows behind a tree. She would have known Daenerys’s hair anywhere. Jon’s stiff shoulders were unmistakable. They stood close, deep in whispered conversation.

_Gods,_ she thought. She backed away from the rail. Her mind spun. 

She turned toward the guest wings and began to untie the leather cord around her neck. Rohanne’s guards were easy to spot; they milled in the passageway.

“Which room is his?” she asked the one who seemed to be in charge.

The guard’s brows drew together; his mouth opened as if he would ask a question, but then he gestured to the door just beyond the one they guarded.

She knocked.

The room was dark save for an open window somewhere. Jaime blinked at her when he opened the door. His false hand was gone. He wore no tunic, no shoes, not even breeches she thought, though he hid his hips behind the door. His hair was soaked; water dripped down his face, neck, and muscled torso as if he’d upended a full pitcher over his head. He looked like a demon sent to lure her from the light of the Seven. She felt her breath turn ragged.

She held up the cord. “I never— I forgot to return this.”

He glared over her shoulder at the guards behind her, then his gaze cut to her. She thought he might refuse her, but he stepped aside, pulled the door open.

She went in before he could change his mind. 

He bolted the door behind her, then stalked through the room out onto a moonlight drenched balcony. Naked. His back and shoulders tight as he leaned against the rail, his stump held close to his side. 

_Do you want me?_

She thought so. His eyes said so in the alcove, but now she was less sure.

“What are you doing here?” he asked softly over his shoulder. 

The cord was warm, coiled in her hand. But that’s not why she was there, though she couldn’t tell him.

She swallowed, walked to the center of the room. Leather soles scuffed against the stone tile as she toed off one boot, then the other. Her gawkish fingers trembled on the laces of her breeches as she fumbled them loose for a second time that night. His back went rigid at the rustle of her clothes.

“What are you doing?” he asked, tension evident in his voice, his posture.

“I want you,” she said, pretending assurance she didn’t feel. He had wanted her once, and he seemed to want her again moments ago. 

She kicked her breeches off, started to pull at the ties of her tunic.

He was motionless on the balcony, his back to her still. His head hung low.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Brienne.”

“Too late,” she said. Then she plucked up her courage. “Come hurt me again.”

He turned. His cock was stiff, his gaze scorched. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her cunt throbbed, ached.

He stalked toward her. 

She shrugged out of her tunic, sucked in a breath over her teeth as he slung his arm under her hips. The warm soapy scent of him made her weak. His fingers fanned over her jaw. 

Their kiss wasn’t gentle. Her taste lingered on his lips. He moaned when she slid her tongue into his mouth as they danced a slow circle to the bed. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down on top of him.

She slid her fingers around his length; the head of his cock slid along the slick lips of her cunt; she positioned him. He groaned and grabbed her hips with one hand and one wrist.

“Oh gods,” she gasped as he surged up into her. The thickness of him stretched, filled. 

She rolled her hips over him, her hands on the mattress to steady herself. Clenched on him as he thrust.

She had almost forgot how it was. This. Jaime.

“Seven hells,” he rasped. His hand on the nape of her neck as his teeth nipped at her throat. “Fuck me.”

She flushed at his words, felt a strange rush of triumph. He strained against her as he drove himself inside her over and over, muttering curses against her skin. 

“I could die here,” he whispered as he brushed her hair off her face. 

He said the same so many nights in Winterfell.

She leaned over him, reveled in the slide of her breasts over the hair on his chest as she ground against him just where she needed friction. 

Her climax built again, steady, as they writhed against one another in a haze of heat and sweat. Then she fell over the edge, her mouth open against his jaw as the raw sounds of it tumbled from her lips. She went limp, draped over him. 

“Brienne.” His mouth was against her ear. His hand flexed on her hip.

She smoothed her palm over his cheek. 

He nudged her hip. _“Brienne.”_

“Mmmm?” She roused and met his thrust.

He urged her off him. “I’m—”

_Oh._ He was careful about it. Always careful.

Something twisted in her heart as she started to move off him as he asked. She shook her head. “I want everything.”

His brow furrowed; he froze; stared at her. _“What?”_

He was still beneath her.

Shame bloomed in her skin. He’d lost his momentum because of her foolishness. She started to roll away. “Forgive me,” she muttered. “I have no right.”

His hand was on her face, gripped her cheek. “You have every right.”

No, she shook her head, throat constricted. 

Jaime kissed her, soft, tentative. She answered, pressed her lips to his, stirred her hips; he did the same. 

He growled, held her tight, rolled her under him. _“Every_ right.”

She parted her thighs and gasped as he buried himself inside her again. He bore her down into the bed; drove the breath from her lungs as he took her deep, hard. 

She clutched him, wrapped her legs around him, pulled him close, set her teeth to his jaw. Her ragged cries echoed with every thrust—desperate, begging.

Her breath hitched. _“Jaime.”_

His jaw clenched, he ground his teeth and pressed his cheek to hers. “You know me,” he gritted into her ear. “You know it’s you.”

She shook her head, but she didn’t care as long as he didn’t stop. The end took him hard, and he groaned into her ear, muscles tight as he held her and came, poured himself hot inside her. Her legs quivered, she might have come again, she didn’t know if the burst was him or her, or just them, but she swept her arm up his back slick with sweat, carded her fingers into his hair as he lay atop her. 

If he could just stay there; if they could lie like this; if dawn would never come— _If, if, if,_ she thought. At this moment, he believed she was the one he wanted, and if they never moved, perhaps she could believe it too.

He lifted his head and looked down at her, his lips tight as he searched her face. She brushed her fingers along his brow, down the beloved break in his nose. His lashes fell closed, and he released a soft breath. 

She’d seen something like this look before—the plea, the melancholy—their last night in Winterfell. She’d thought he was sad about Cersei, and she hadn’t known how to comfort him. When they went to bed that night, she’d enfolded him, taken him inside her. They came together slow, tender. When she woke in the night, he’d been gone.

He hadn’t been sad about Cersei then, she realized. _He was sad about me._

He pulled out of her, and she felt the loss of him as his seed began to seep out between her thighs. His hand was on her face; he dropped his forehead onto hers as their bodies cooled. She drew the thin linen sheet over them.

A tear slipped out the corner of her eye before she even knew it was there. Then another.

His face fell as he caught a tear with his thumb. “No. No, no, no. _Why?”_

She cupped his cheek and gave a little shrug. 

“You can’t save me from this,” she said.


	13. Chapter 13

Jaime woke to the feel of Brienne’s lips on his forehead, a feather-light brush in the dark; the scent of her skin, warm with sleep, soothed him.

Then she rolled away.

He wanted to reach for her, hold her close, wanted to beg.

Instead, he feigned sleep as she left his bed and dressed in the dark. Somewhere in the empty expanse of the Red Keep beyond his balcony a bird trilled the approach of dawn.

Brienne pulled on her boots and cast a glance over her shoulder toward the bed, then she slipped out the door. He rolled over to face the ceiling.

She was gone.

He’d known she would go. Knew it the way he knew the sun would rise.

She would return to her island, and her life would go on. At least she was free. And safe. A sweet thought amidst the ache of losing her.

_You hurt me._

_You broke me._

There was no going back. Even if she’d remembered how to say his name again. Held him again. Taken him inside her again. Even if she’d half implied she wanted his child.

She couldn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her.

At Winterfell, he’d felt like a fraud, felt he was cheating on Cersei—betraying her. He felt unworthy of the trust Brienne and Tyrion and the Starks placed in him. Who had he been then, truly? The Kingslayer. A sister fucker. A man better known for his mistakes and treasons than anything else.

He thought he could stop being that man when he was with Brienne in Winterfell, but there were parts of him that could not break free. As much as he wanted Brienne and a life with her, it couldn’t come at the cost of Cersei dying alone in agony.

He’d thought he had no choice but to save Cersei or die with her. And he _had_ saved her, but when he tried to live with her, it was no different than it had ever been. It was worse. She didn’t love him. He’d known that for a long time. She didn’t even like him. He knew that too. But he still remembered the way she’d talked about saving their child during their escape from the Red Keep, only for her to—

No.

Nothing could ever exist between him and Cersei again. They’d been done since Ro was born. The final unbreachable chasm between them.

Still, he could never regret leaving Winterfell. The thought of a world without Ro was too painful to consider. He couldn’t regret the path that led him to her, but he could regret the way he’d done it.

He left Brienne alone... _lost_...in Winterfell. He’d known he mattered to her, but not how much. Hadn’t thought she would take his leaving as anything but a sign that she’d been mistaken to let him close.

She _had_ been mistaken. Mistaken to think there was anything more to him than what she’d first thought when they met. In her letter, she said she thought it was love that drove him, but a man driven by love would have known—would have realized, told her, _shown_ her—

He hurt her. Hurt her in a way only he could. The noblest, fiercest creature in Westeros, immune to White Walkers, and the dead, and dragons, but not to his arrogant, thoughtless betrayal. The fact that he hadn’t thought of it as betrayal then only made it all worse.

And now he’d gone to bed with her again. Because he couldn’t seem to learn. Even now, he had half a mind to take a ship to Tarth and throw himself at her feet—plead with her to take him in. Try to wear her down.

It’s what he would have done once. The sort of selfish, reckless pursuit of her that had caused all their problems to begin with. He wouldn’t do it again. As much as he wanted her—wanted to spend every remaining moment of his life with her—he couldn’t wish himself on her.

Instead, he would be the man he ought to have been, even if it was too late to matter.

So he resigned himself to it. This would be his first day without Brienne. Another would follow it. And another. And however many more it took to reach an end. She’d always been half a dream to him since the first time she left King’s Landing all those years ago, and she would be again.

A man was meant to watch the stars, not hold them.

A few days after Brienne left, during a small supper in the Hand’s Chambers that Tyrion and Sansa pretended not to be hosting like a married couple, Arya said she and Gendry would wed the next day.

As the table erupted in conversation, Rohanne turned to him. “I don’t like weddings,” she said.

He bit back a laugh. “You’ve only been to one.”

Her lip curled in disgust. Then she stole a lemon cake off his plate.

He turned to Gendry and offered his congratulations. The man seemed annoyingly Robert-like as he rolled his eyes with a jovial grin. “Sansa talked her into it because of the babe. She’ll leave me eventually.”

Jaime winced.

Gendry snorted and shrugged.

The ceremony held the next evening in the heart of the Red Keeps’s re-planted godswood was intimate and informal. The air was spiced by the smoky aroma of the blood-red blooms of dragon’s breath that dotted the ground. Jaime let Rohanne roam through the grass and flowers as Jon brought Arya to the fledgling weirwood, where the whole thing was finished within a few phrases.

Like the wedding itself, the wedding supper was small and entirely lacking in ceremony. They held it on the large terrace off the throne room overlooking Blackwater Bay. The breeze from the water blew fresh and sweet. Jaime thought the entire wedding celebration was tolerable—almost pleasant. Save that Tyrion was in a mood.

The Hand of the King brooded as he watched Sansa laugh with her brother and sister.

“She leaves soon?” Jaime asked.

“In a few days,” Tyrion said. He poured more wine, first into Jaime’s goblet, then his own.

Jaime took a drink. “Marry her. You’re a fool to let politics interfere.”

Tyrion grunted. “You think I haven’t tried to convince her? She says her position is better when potential allies and enemies alike think there’s a chance they can woo her.”

“So?”

“She’s not wrong.” Tyrion sighed at having to explain it.

Jaime ignored him. He understood well enough what Sansa’s reasoning was, he just didn’t think power was more important than happiness.

“Well, she’s going to need an heir,” Jaime said.

“Ha!” Tyrion tipped his goblet toward Arya and Gendry. “That’s what this is all about. Arya will give her an heir.”

Jaime snorted. “That heir has drawn double duty, then, because that’s exactly why Daenerys looks like a cat in cream. Gendry’s heir will be hers. Does Sansa want the North to be the seventh kingdom again?”

“If you think I haven’t used that argument to try to convince her to wed me and bear my child, you don’t know me at all,” Tyrion said.

For a while, after he’d begun to understand what Sansa and Tyrion were to each other, Jaime had wondered if perhaps Sansa didn’t feel as deeply for Tyrion as Tyrion did for her, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Incomprehensible as they were as a couple, they were devoted to one another. They’d even begun referring to one another as “my love” in quiet family settings, which Jaime found awkward, but seemed to make them happy.

“You’re still fools,” Jaime said.

Tyrion scowled. “Bold of you to accuse someone else of playing love’s fool.”

Jaime grimaced. “Fair enough.”

“You know, I don’t think Brienne told Sansa about the marriage offer,” Tyrion said, his tone suddenly thoughtful.

Jaime exhaled hard. “That doesn’t surprise me. She’s private about such things.”

“Is there no hope, then?” Tyrion’s finger tapped a light beat on the lip of his goblet. Jaime suspected his brother knew something had happened between him and Brienne before she left, but, for once, Tyrion had been wise enough to keep his mouth shut about it.

“No hope,” Jaime said. He took a drink. “All hope has been dead since Winterfell.”

“I thought you lot revived all hope at Winterfell during the great _Long Night_ none of you will shut up about,” Bronn said as he sat down hard across the table from them.

Tyrion groaned. “And we were having such a pleasant evening.”

Jaime scowled at Bronn. “Thought you were leaving for the Reach.”

Bronn darted a look at Yara Greyjoy, who talked earnestly with Daenerys and Bran two tables over. “As it happens, I may be in the midst of making a strategic alliance.”

Tyrion drowned a skeptical sound in his wine goblet.

“Sure you’re up for that?” Jaime asked. “She’d carve you into pieces.”

“You two offering marriage advice now?” Bronn asked. “You’re the last ones I’d ask.”

“Fair enough,” Tyrion said. “You’re a great lord now. No need to accept advice from green boys like us.”

“I should say not,” Bronn said. He looked hard at Jaime. “You made your choice yet? The poisonous beauty or the sword-wielding dragonrider?”

Jaime scowled at Bronn. “Fuck off.”

Bronn laughed, and Tyrion joined him. Jaime cast a dark look at his brother.

“You _do_ have to choose.” Tyrion gave him a skeptical smirk.

“I did choose,” Jaime said. “And then _she_ chose, and that was the end of it.”

“Clever girl, flying away from you,” Bronn said. “Probably didn’t want to watch you waste yourself swapping places with your cunt sister.”

Jaime thunked his Valyrian steel hand on the table. “Watch your mouth.”

“Or you’ll watch it for me?” Bronn guffawed. “You’d need a dragon to back up that threat, and it seems you’ll never have one.”

“My brother has accepted defeat, Lord Bronn, don’t mock him for it,” Tyrion said. “It’s a sign of maturity to know when a cause is lost.”

“Lost?” Bronn scrunched up his face, incredulous at Tyrion’s words. He turned to glare at Jaime. “That woman would walk through fire for you. She’s scared you’ll leave her weeping again like when she thought you were buried under a pile of pink bricks. If you want her, tell her. Don’t give her a priceless sword and nod at her while you flex that muscle in your jaw so hard it’s like to snap and think she’ll somehow know what you mean _—tell her._ Offer marriage.”

“You think I haven’t?”

“Only once?” Bronn chuckled and took a sip of wine. “You stupid handsome nob. She thinks you still want your sister. Just like everyone else thinks. Send her a raven. Say the offer stands. Tell her to name her price.”

Bronn’s words echoed over and over in Jaime’s head that night as he lay sleepless in his bed. Should he have asked Brienne again? She said she didn’t believe his offer at first, but surely she understood after their talk in Tyrion’s chambers. And if not then, after she’d come to his bed, she must have understood.

He’d been wrong about what she understood before, though. Very wrong.

The next day, Cersei was brought to the Hand’s Chambers for the midday meal. Tyrion had arranged it all, a final chance for Ro to say goodbye to her mother. Jaime and Ro sailed for Casterly Rock with the morning tide, and he wasn’t sure how long it would be before either of them saw Cersei again. Part of him didn’t want to let her near Ro, but he believed Cersei loved their child in her own way. He thought she should have the chance to say farewell.

“There were wedding celebrations yesterday,” Cersei said after the four of them were seated. “I saw the subdued little supper from my apartments. Northerners can’t even be merry at a wedding feast, it seems.”

“They seemed merry enough to me,” Tyrion said. “Everyone enjoys a love match.”

“I hear you’re to have a love match of your own soon,” Cersei said.

Tyrion’s eyes narrowed at their sister. “You hear many rumors for a prisoner.”

Ro sat stiff in her seat and said little as Tyrion and Cersei traded barbs. Her guards and Cersei’s milled around the room in a strange, ominous crowd.

“Well,” Cersei said, “she’s a large woman, so it’s easy to hear a great deal about her.”

Jaime forced himself to keep chewing and made his face impassive. Was Sansa a large woman?

“Most women are large to me.” Tyrion’s blink was cat-like as he watched their sister. “I like climbing mountains.”

Cersei tilted her head just so as she studied their brother. “I suppose it’s worth it for a dragon.”

“Mmmm.” Tyrion tipped his goblet at her and let his eyes slide Jaime’s way for the briefest moment.

She meant Brienne. She thought Tyrion had made the offer of marriage for himself.

“Dragons are worth a lot.” Rohanne looked between her mother and uncle. “I would trade ten ponies for a dragon.”

Cersei frowned at her. “You will stay well away from dragons.”

“Why?” Ro’s voice was high. “I love them.”

“A proper young lady does not ask her mother ‘why,’” Cersei said. “Dragons are dangerous.”

Ro generally placated Cersei, but her dander was up. “Robb is good. I love Robb. I don’t want to stay away. Drogon kissed me.”

“Drogon _what?”_

Ro patted her cheek. “Kissed me.”

Cersei’s nostrils flared. Her gaze cut to Jaime. _“Did_ he?”

Jaime stared back at her. He was so tired of this. What did it matter if Ro thought she’d been kissed by a dragon? It was harmless. He was sick of Cersei’s grudges, the endless list of slights she added to day after day.

“What does it matter?” he asked his sister.

“If I married the Evenstar, Rohanne would be able to visit a dragon as often as she wishes.” Tyrion hid his smirk in his goblet as he watched their sister’s face.

“Isn’t Brienne the Everstar?” Rohanne asked her uncle.

“The Eve _-n-_ star,” Tyrion corrected. “And yes, she is.”

Ro’s eyes got big. “Will you have to do a wedding?”

Tyrion grinned. “Probably.”

“I like them better in the trees.” Rohanne nodded sagely.

“Should I wed,” Tyrion said, “I think a weirwood wedding in front of the old gods would be the best choice.”

“Good,” Ro said. “You should wedding Brienne. She cut off her vanity.”

“Did she?” Tyrion mused.

 _“Lady_ Brienne,” Cersei snapped at Rohanne. “However she acts and dresses, she’s a lady.”

“No,” Ro said. “Just Brienne. She told me.”

“You think I care what Brienne of Tarth told you?”

 _Enough of this,_ Jaime thought.

“Ro,” he said, “say farewell to your lady mother.”

Cersei’s face closed; her skin went smooth, her muscles slack as she stared at him.

Ro looked more than happy to go. She stood and made a half-hearted curtsey, mumbled a farewell, then turned to go.

“Wait.” Cersei scrambled to her feet and knelt before Ro. She took Ro’s face in her hands and kissed her gently on the forehead. Jaime noticed the way his sister maneuvered her palm, so the entirety of the stain on Ro’s cheek was hidden.

Ro stared at her mother, uncertain. She’d never really seemed to relax with Cersei, even as an infant. At the ripe old age of four, his daughter was more shrewd than he’d ever been. She’d always known what Cersei was.

Jaime glanced at his brother. Tyrion looked fondly at Ro. _Tyrion always knew, too._

“Farewell, my child,” Cersei whispered. Her chin quivered for a moment. “I will see you soon.”

Jaime turned to Ro’s lead guard. “Take her to ride her pony.”

Ro squealed and ran from Cersei’s arms and out the door.

Cersei glared at Jaime as she returned to her place at the table. “Did you enjoy that?”

“No,” he said. He shoved his half full plate of food away.

“Careful, Cersei,” Tyrion crooned. “You don’t want to alienate him, or you’ll never convince him to play hostage for your parole.”

Jaime rolled his eyes.

“What do you imagine the little Targaryen girl will do if you leave me here?” Cersei asked. “How long do you imagine I will continue to draw breath?”

Tyrion chuckled. “As long as you cause no trouble.”

Cersei looked at their brother out the corner of her eye. “Enjoying the thought of my misery?”

Tyrion sighed and slowly slid off his chair. “You’ll be surprised to learn that your misery has never been particularly enjoyable to me. Not half so enjoyable as mine has been for you, at any rate.”

“You simply lack my sense of humor,” Cersei said.

Tyrion smiled and shook his head as he left the room.

Jaime looked at Cersei’s guards. “Leave her with me.”

“M’lord—”

He dropped his Valyrian steel hand to the hilt of Widow’s Wail and moved his mouth into Tywin’s most monstrous hint of a smile. “Leave her. With _me.”_

As soon as the guards closed the door behind them, Cersei leaned against the back of her chair. “If Tyrion can wed a dragon—”

Jaime cut her off. “There’s no chance of Tyrion wedding a dragon.”

She made a face as though she’d smelled something distasteful. “You, then. You do it. She always made cow eyes at you. Is what the singers say true? Did you have her in Winterfell during—”

“You’re speaking of a highborn lady.”

Her lips quirked. “So it _is_ true. I never knew if I should believe it. Things must have been dire indeed if Brienne of Tarth was the best Winterfell had to offer you. No wonder you ran back to me.”

Jaime watched her close; saw the disquiet that dragged at the corners of her mouth. Gods, she really hadn’t believed the rumors.

“If you wed her,” Cersei said, “and we control a dragon—”

He stood. “I’ll take no part in controlling her or her dragon.”

“Tyrion will wed her, then,” Cersei said. “One of you. She will be at the Rock—”

“He won’t.”

“You do it, then,” Cersei said. “Can’t you see, it saves you from being locked up here—”

“I gave her up, Cersei. I gave her up so you wouldn’t have to die alone. I didn’t want you to suffer—”

“Then _save_ me.”

“No. I can’t. I won’t.” He turned away, then turned back to her. “It’s never enough. I helped dig your last grave, but I’ve had no part in this one.”

“Traitor.”

He laughed and turned to leave. “I must go, Cersei.”

Cersei stood. “One of you will wed her, I—”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“I’ve seen it! In the flames. If it’s you, then—”

Jaime felt stuck in place as he stared at his sister. He never would have guessed she genuinely believed in that red god nonsense.

Jon and Davos had explained flame gazing to them early on in the war when they’d worried that the followers of the red god could outflank them by reading the future. _“Sometimes they’re right,”_ Davos had said, then his voice had turned gruff, _“sometimes they’re dead wrong. And sometimes they only know a sliver of the truth which they must interpret. The interpretations usually fail.”_

“You saw wrong,” he said.

His hand was on the door when her chair scraped against the tile floor.

He didn’t know when he would see her again. The thought was like a blade with no edge. It seemed sharp but didn’t cut him. Still. He turned back to look at her one last time. She looked younger than she ought in the bright midday summer sun pouring through the windows. Beautiful in her gown of red and gold. Cersei. Always Cersei.

She glared at him, and he smiled, found himself nodding.

“Farewell,” he said.

Her guards gathered around him when he slipped through the door. He sent them back in to guard her.

He meant to go find Ro, but found himself in his bedchamber instead. The bed was freshly made, the pale linens turned back with inviting crisp folds. He’d mourned Brienne in that bed.

He’d _had_ Brienne in that bed.

The thing that existed between them never seemed to break. He’d tried to break it. So had she. Yet there it was, still alive. Still waiting for them to grasp it again. He’d hurt her—never been worthy of her—and yet it didn’t die.

When she’d written him her death letter, she’d thought he might burn it. _So be it,_ she’d written.

If she never wanted him again, so be it, but he would leave her in no doubt that he wanted her.

He went to the Grand Maester’s chamber and ignored the bewildered look on Samwell Tarly’s face when he asked for ink and a scrap of parchment meant for the leg of a raven. Jaime’s handwriting had always been passable at best. From his left hand, it was abysmal. He carried on anyway. He thought he had all the words right; thought they were in the correct order.

“How do you tell the maester not to open it?” Jaime asked Sam.

“Ah,” Sam said, then he rolled the parchment and put a mark on the outside, “like this.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Evenfall was easy, nigh unchanged.

Before Daenerys and Bran’s wedding, Brienne had returned briefly. She’d landed at midday in the castleyard to screams, then shouts and chaos. Her steward had called out to her from the stables, and she’d had to fight a smile as she coaxed him out to meet her ridiculous dragon. She sent Daenerys’s small sellsword garrison packing with little more than a flick of her chin.

When she flew home again after the melee, it almost felt as though she’d simply returned from Storm’s End on some errand.

Her first days back were filled with the work of being Lady of Evenfall.

The quarries were neglected. Crops hadn’t been sown. Sheep hadn’t been shorn. Each day brought seven new tasks that were overdue and in need of oversight. She worked. There was much to do. Too much work for her to spend time thinking. Or missing.

The gold dragon was an endless nuisance. After three reports of stolen sheep, she’d had to spend a day teaching him how to fish. He nested in one of the caves on the cliff face half a league from the castle but would appear screeching for her in the yard at all times of the day and night, craving her attention—or more sheep.

She hung her father’s sword above the mantel in her solar and strapped Oathkeeper around her hips. It felt right there, an old friend, its hilt familiar in her hand. If nothing else, the sword was hers. It would always be hers. Jaime had said so, and she knew he meant it. She would never set it aside again.

In the evenings, she climbed the battlements to the parapet walk between the towers of the old keep and looked out at Shipbreaker Bay, or stared up toward the Straits of Tarth. She breathed in the sea breeze, mountains and lush green fields at her back. She gazed out over the water, tasted the salt in the air, listened to the waterfalls below, and the waves beyond. This was Evenfall. Tarth. The wind, the mountains, the water—a storm forever brewing on the horizon.

It was a simple place, and she was a simple woman, done now with wars and quests. And love.

She was on the battlements one night when her maester sought her out, lantern in hand.

“My lady?”

“How may I help you, maester?” she asked him, trying to hide her irritation that he’d interrupted her solitude.

“A message has come. From King’s Landing.” He approached and held something toward her.

“What does it say?”

“I have not read it, my lady. It is for your eyes alone.”

She looked sharply at him. He gave her the small scroll and set his lantern on the stone crenel.

Her first thought was that it was Sansa, but surely the Queen in the North would have departed from King’s Landing already. _Tyrion,_ she thought. _Or Jon._

When she saw the unsteady lettering of the first word, she closed her hand over the scroll and turned to the maester. “Leave me, please. May I keep the lantern?”

“Of course, my lady,” he said. He gave an uncertain glance back at her over his shoulder as he walked away.

She unrolled the tiny parchment again; laid it flat in the pool of lantern light. Like all messages sent by raven, there was no room for excess.

 _Brienne—_ it began. No titles. No formality. Just the faltering script of a man who’d lost his right hand and had never been good with ink and quill anyway.

_The offer stands until I’m in the ground. Your name is the only thing I breathe. Ask anything of me. Name your price._

He hadn’t signed it. He didn’t need to.

She lay her hand over the parchment, flattened it against the stone as she struggled to catch her breath.

_Ask anything of me._

_Name your price._

Did he mean she could ask him never to see Cersei again? Ask him to swear to it?

She thought about it, thought about his fist wrapped around Oathkeeper’s hilt as he swore to leave Cersei behind. In her vision, his eyes grew pained and hollow.

 _He’ll free her eventually,_ she thought. _He just doesn’t know it yet. He will._

_Won’t he?_

It would be easy to let herself believe he wouldn’t return to Cersei. Their last night in King’s Landing, he’d said goodbye to her as he had at Winterfell, with his lips and his body and his touch. And she’d wondered through that night in his arms if she could do it. Love him. Marry him. He wanted her still. Perhaps, as Tyrion said, he even...

_Your name is the only thing I breathe._

A strange way to put it. Odd words. Words full of fevered kisses, of bodies pressed together during sweat soaked nights, and more perhaps. Perhaps much more.

Jaime believed he could stay with her. Thought he could marry her, make a life with her. She knew that much. Knew he wouldn’t try to deceive her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He’d said it over and over.

But he’d believed the same in Winterfell. When the time had come for the remaining forces to make their plans to move south to confront Cersei, Brienne had felt the dread of it. She hadn’t been sure if Jaime would go, if he would fight against Cersei, or fight _for_ Cersei. He had shared her bed for three nights at that point, and they spared precious little time for talk as they slipped away together each night after the evening meal.

 _“You’ll stay?”_ he’d asked her. _“You’ll stay with Sansa?”_

She remembered she’d stood before the fire, hidden in her robe as she cleaned herself between her thighs with a damp rag while he lay in bed naked with the furs thrown back. It had been easy for him, so easy, but she’d still felt embarrassed of her nudity when they weren’t _—when they weren’t—_ when they weren’t touching.

 _“Yes,”_ she’d said, _“my duty lies here with Lady Sansa.”_

 _“I’ll stay with you, then,”_ he’d said.

She remembered the rush of heat she felt at his words, still. How she’d looked back over her shoulder at him, felt a thousand questions bubble up, then die again before she let them reach her lips. _I’ll stay with you._ He didn’t say that he’d stay at Winterfell, or that he’d stay to avoid fighting Cersei. _You,_ that was what he said. _“I’ll stay with you.”_

Perhaps she was wrong to believe he meant it. Wrong to return to her bed and straddle him and kiss him into the pillows. Wrong to assume.

But she hadn’t assumed too much. He told her so after he made the offer for her hand. He’d said so much she could hardly take it all in.

_You weren’t wrong to think we could have had a life together. You were more right than you ever knew._

_I thought I could be a different man. Have a better life._

_I could have lived without her._

_I wanted to stay with you._

He _had_ left, though. He’d made a life without her.

 _Without Cersei too,_ some wretched part of her whispered.

Rohanne was four, so it had been four years since he’d been with Cersei. That was a long time, and there had been no one else. Which didn’t surprise her. One of the first things she’d ever heard cross his lips was a boast that he’d never been with anyone but Cersei.

_Until me._

Wasn’t that why she’d thought she mattered to him? Why she’d believed they could have a life together?

She looked down at the parchment in her hand. He’d written it himself, thought about her, wanted her enough to send it. Her heart ached. Danger lurked in every word he wrote, each one trying to lure her back into his arms.

For a moment, she considered letting the wind take his missive, allowing it to float away down the cliff, out over the water, to drown in the Bay. Instead, she tucked the parchment away inside the inner pocket of her gambeson. Over her heart.

She tried to make herself forget about it. About _him._

There were other matters for her to attend.

When he thought her dead, Gendry Baratheon had dispatched a message to the cousin who was her heir. Brienne had written to correct the mistaken news of her death whilst she was still in King’s Landing and had invited the woman and her children to visit Tarth.

They arrived a fortnight after Brienne’s return. The widowed cousin was a surprise. She was small—short, even. Pretty. No older than Sansa. Her daughters were tiny; Brienne thought they must be near Rohanne’s age. One a bit older, one a bit younger, perhaps.

At first, Brienne was grateful for the distraction of their presence—thankful for anything that took her mind off the tiny parchment lurking in her pocket.

The first night of her cousin’s visit to Evenfall, they supped together, and Brienne wondered how they could be related. The woman shared her coloring, but little else. Her cousin was kind enough but was clearly startled by Brienne’s height, her clothes, her sword. The dragon.

Her cousin was alarmed when Brienne asked if she wanted to visit the quarries and perplexed when Brienne tried to explain the marble trade. She was intelligent enough but seemed to resist learning about it on principle. “I’ll need to discuss betrothals, should I inherit,” the woman said, “surely, I would need a husband who could oversee the quarries and negotiate with merchants—no one could expect me to do it myself.”

The whole conversation put Brienne in mind of Hyle Hunt and all the other men who’d ever wanted her for Tarth or the dragon. Any of them would gladly take over the affairs of ruling. The thought of a man attempting to supersede her was so odious, it had never occurred to her that any woman might seek it out—might want a husband to treat her like a vassal.

 _Jaime wouldn’t,_ a voice whispered in her ear. _Jaime knew._

She pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter what sort of husband Jaime offered to be. Just as it didn’t matter what he’d written in the parchment she kept close to her heart.

By the third day of her cousin’s visit, Brienne found herself drinking a second goblet of wine with every meal. After a fortnight with her guests, halfway through their visit, she sought escape.

She took the gold and flew to King’s Landing on the flimsy excuse of ordering a new saddle for her dragon. The gold’s saddle was the original one Bran ordered made, and it had room for only one rider and one saddlebag. She wanted something bigger—more like Jon’s.

When she arrived, she wasn’t surprised to find Sansa had already set sail for Winterfell with newly married Arya and Gendry.

Nor was she surprised to find Jaime gone. She knew he had planned to sail for Casterly Rock not long after the melee. She was glad he would return to his home at least once before he agreed to play hostage in Cersei’s stead.

 _Your name is the only thing I breathe,_ the little parchment in her pocket sang before she bade herself ignore it.

Jon was still in King’s Landing. His continued presence surprised her.

She shared an intimate dinner with the king, queen, Jon, and Tyrion in the Hand’s chambers. Daenerys was kind and much more relaxed without the other Starks it seemed. Brienne thought perhaps the queen had given up the hope of finding her a husband, but after they ate, Daenerys chanced to catch her looking out Tyrion’s window.

“The steward tells me you requested a particular chamber for your stay, Lady Brienne,” Daenerys said.

Brienne cleared her throat. She’d asked for Jaime’s former chamber with the excuse that she knew the balcony had an excellent view.

“I hoped for a view over the water, your grace, I did not mean to make a nuisance of myself,” she said.

“Of course you may have any chamber you wish,” Daenerys said as she blinked with a smile in her eyes.

Brienne suspected someone had reported to Daenerys that she had spent the night with Jaime after the melee. Maybe one of Rohanne’s guards let it slip. Perhaps the servants guessed it from the sheets. She felt a wave of embarrassment, then thought about the looks Jon and Daenerys had exchanged throughout the meal and decided she didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

“Yes, thank you, your grace.”

After the king and queen left, Brienne pinned Jon with a look.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, my lord,” she said.

“Not really, no.” Jon rolled his eyes as if disgusted with himself.

“Are we,” Tyrion intoned, looking her way, _“any of us_ in a position to judge?”

She glared at Tyrion. “I’m not judging. I’m concerned.”

She looked back at Jon. It was treason, and he knew it. Tyrion knew it too.

And if Daenerys felt powerless with Drogon maimed, perhaps she thought to secure Jon’s loyalty by bedding him, making him think she still loved him. Brienne had no idea if Daenerys’s apparent feelings for Jon were genuine. She didn’t know how they could be, but she’d felt the same about Sansa and Tyrion.

Jon had been a good and loyal friend to her, and she didn’t want to see him executed for bedding the queen—or worse.

Tyrion gave her a hard look. A look that said he wondered about Daenerys’s motives as well. Then he smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“What are they going to do?” Tyrion asked her. “Send him back to the Wall?”

Jon snorted and gave them an embarrassed smile.

“I understand that the king likely knows and doesn’t mind,” Brienne said, trying to imagine Bran caring much about anything, “but what of the rest of court, and the six kingdoms? There are laws. Laws of gods and men. Have a care. Wars have started over less.”

The two nodded at that, and Tyrion tipped his goblet to her. “Well, I suppose this is the point where we acknowledge that you and Jon are the most powerful people in Westeros. Most likely, you could make your own laws.”

“Like Targaryens?” Brienne asked. She looked at Jon. “No offense.”

Jon shrugged.

“It’s precisely because we have so much power that we must follow laws and traditions.” She took a deep breath. “The major ones, anyway.”

Tyrion chuckled at that, and she gave him another glare.

Jon looked hard at her and nodded. “I agree,” he said. He looked chagrined. “In principle.”

She felt sorry for him then. “I don’t wish you unhappy, my lord.”

Jon shook his head. “I know.”

“Yes, I’m sure the lady meant nothing personal,” Tyrion said. “We all know she has deep, uh, respect for men who engage in royal adultery.”

She faced Tyrion fully and let him feel the heat of her glare. “How do you think I know the cost so well, my lord?”

Tyrion dipped his head to concede that point. “The Evenstar lights the way to wisdom.”

She rolled her eyes but held her tongue.

Later, when they left Tyrion’s chambers, Jon followed Brienne to her room. She gave him an odd look when he stood beside her door, but she let him in.

She supposed that would give the servants something interesting to report to the queen. She lit a candle on the bedside table and a torch against the wall.

“Look, Brienne,” Jon said. “I fear I may have overstepped.”

“How?”

“I— Jaime. With Jaime.”

She swallowed. Stared at him. “Jaime?”

“He was worried about you. Asked about you. Was afraid you would rush your recovery after you were rescued.”

“Oh? When?”

“Maidenpool. It seemed to me you wanted to be away from him.” Jon grimaced. “I told him he needed to let you go. I may have overstepped.”

She shook her head. “I wanted to be away from him then.”

_Then._

The word hung in the air. It implied a _now_ which was somehow different. But there was no difference. There couldn’t be.

“Well,” Jon said, “I have wondered if I caused you strife. Or him. I have no wish to interfere. When you find someone— Well, the last thing you need is someone interfering.”

Shame blossomed in her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to interfere with you and the queen. If you are discreet, I’m sure no harm will be done, but if you stay here—”

Jon laughed. “No. You were right. As you say, I must be discreet if nothing else.”

She nodded. “Well, my lord—”

He laughed again. “I know I’ve asked before, but surely you can call me Jon now.”

She started to speak but caught herself. Formality was necessary, the key to keeping order, but friendship mattered too.

“Jon,” she said. “You’ll hear no more from me. Life is hard enough without a little...”

“Love?” Jon asked.

She closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes. Love.”

Jon started for the door, then turned back. “Jaime— I’m the one who told him you were dead. _He—_ Brienne, I’ve lost people I love. That man didn’t want to live without you.”

She stared at him. Her mouth was raw and dry. She realized he awaited an answer. All she could muster was, “Oh.”

He left then, and she extinguished the lights.

Tyrion had good reason to tell her Jaime loved her, but Jon?

_The offer stands until I’m in the ground._

She tried to imagine Jaime falling to his knees at word of her death, as Tyrion had told her. Then she remembered the way his strength left him all those years ago at Harrenhal when Roose Bolton told him Cersei was alive. Devotion was the only word she’d had for it then, twisted as his love for his sister was to her.

Devotion. Love. The words existed between her and Jaime, but for years she’d told herself they were hers alone.

The night was hot, and the balcony called to her. She remembered Jaime there. Naked. Magnificent.

He had haunted her midnight thoughts for years. Since Joffrey’s death. Maybe even earlier, perhaps since Harrenhal. She had wanted him then, through the terrible months in King’s Landing, and her arduous search for Sansa and Arya, through the cold months at the Wall, and the hopeless nights before he arrived at Winterfell. She dreamed of him, indulged impossible fantasies that he might feel the same.

After Winterfell, it was the same, but different. She no longer allowed herself to think of what could be between them. The longing for something she’d never known had become craving for touch remembered, tinged with sorrow and anger.

Now there had been a shift again. A gradual thing. Begun perhaps after she flew with Jon to Riverrun. A strange mix of all of it: the longing, the anger, the sorrow. But the fantasy also revived. The idea of something new with Jaime—a new touch, a new look. Moments not yet known.

She undressed completely and slipped into bed. Though she was sure she imagined it, she caught the scent of him as she moved her fingers between her legs and gasped his name over and over.

The next day, after she’d visited the royal saddlemaker, she stood in the upper gallery of the throne room while the king held court. She hoped to spend a little time with Pod when he was off duty. Tyrion found her there.

“You leave in the morning?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Cersei entered the throne room below. She swept past other courtiers in a deep red linen dress, encircled by her ring of guards.

“Ah. My sweet sister.”

Brienne doubted Cersei heard him through the din of the crowd, but she looked up at the gallery. Her gaze assessed Brienne’s light blue linen tunic and grey breeches. Then she tilted her head and gave Brienne a smile that wasn’t a smile.

All Brienne could do in return was glare.

Tyrion chuckled. “She thinks I offered you _my_ hand in marriage.”

Brienne startled and stared down at him. “What?”

His smile was almost infectious. “The red priestesses show her things in their fires, apparently—so she told Jaime. Somehow she thought that was what she saw.”

Nothing about the red god was funny to Brienne. She looked back at Cersei again, troubled. What would the woman do when Jaime finally decided to free her? Why had Bran chosen to allow it? She remembered the nonsense about Daenerys and vengeance not getting her what she wanted.

“How long before he frees her, do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t think he will,” Tyrion said.

She gave him a pitying glance.

He shrugged. “Well, you’re entitled to your skepticism, but I don’t think he will.”

“Will you—” She stopped. Swallowed. “Will you send me word when he means to do it?”

Tyrion patted her hand on the rail. “Should it come to pass, I will, but I think your worry is needless.”

She nodded. “Thank you all the same.”

“I do wonder which part of the offer of marriage she saw in the flames,” Tyrion said. “Was it me giving the satchel to you? Was it when I signed the document? Surely it wasn’t when Jaime came to me and asked me to do it and spent the whole night overseeing everything.”

She blinked. That would have been the night she came to King’s Landing from Harrenhal. The night she returned Widow’s Wail. “Perhaps she saw me read it.”

“Perhaps. She certainly didn’t hear Jaime deliver his detailed list of demands for the contracts,” Tyrion said. “And she didn’t hear me tell him I thought it was hopeless. Nor did she hear him say he knew it was hopeless, but he didn’t want to wake up in a few years and wonder what might have happened if he tried.”

“I wonder that people think you’re so underhanded and clever,” she said. “You’ve never been subtle in my presence.”

He barked out a laugh. “No. I confess, I assume you’re immune to subtlety.”

“I’m not.”

Cersei glanced up at them again.

“If you weren’t afraid he will choose to trade himself for her, would you be with him?” Tyrion asked.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was too weak.

Tyrion sighed. “Do you want him, Brienne?”

“Yes.”

“For the love of the old gods and the new, take him then. He’s yours.”

“He’s never been that,” she said.

“You’re wrong.” Tyrion shook his head at her. “I suspect he’s always been yours.”

Her pulse raced. _How could he— But, no. No._

Even if that were true, it wasn’t that simple.

It couldn’t be.

“Farewell, Lord Tyrion,” she said as the royal audience broke up below.

“Until we meet again, Lady Brienne.”

She fled.

As she and Pod shared supper that night, she thought of Jaime. That night in bed, she imagined Jaime at her side. When she said farewell to the king and queen and Jon the next morning, she could barely follow what they said—all she thought about was her farewell to Jaime.

During her return flight to Tarth, her mind was full of Jaime. She remembered his smirk when he stole her sword all those years ago in the riverlands. His fever ravaged body in the Harrenhal bathhouse, his voice defiant and desperate. She thought of his face when he gave her Oathkeeper, the guarded but soft look he so often gave her. Her mind raced through all of it: his arrogant drawl at Riverrun, his hopeless rage at the Dragonpit, his hesitant knowing eyes in Winterfell.

He’d wanted her then. He said so. She believed it now.

Honor and bravery were part of what drove him back to Cersei, but love had been most of it. If something like love had also driven him north, then she could believe that he hadn’t wanted to leave her—that he hadn’t forgotten her the moment he rode away from Winterfell.

She could believe it after the night they shared in King’s Landing. After his note.

But what was she supposed to do with this belief?

Did he love Cersei less? Even if they were estranged? _If he loves me,_ she thought, _it is in addition to his love for her. I don’t replace her._

So, what then—was she meant to open her heart to him once more? To live with the fear he would leave again?

She wrestled with it all as she flew. The dragon made her free. She could turn west and fly until she found Casterly Rock, perhaps even be there by sunset. Why would she go, though? To share his bed for a night? A fortnight? A turn of the moon?

Foolish as it was, she would. She would go to him and greedily gather those moments to hold to her breast later when the nights grew cold again. The seal on that part of herself she’d tried to protect from him was gone. It was gone the moment she touched him the night of the melee.

When she alighted at Evenfall, her cousin greeted her with a warm smile and a gift: one of her own tunics delicately embroidered with her coat of arms on the front. Brienne could mend a tear in a tunic or attach a button—her old septa had seen to that—but even to her untrained eye, the work her cousin had done was exquisite. How the woman had managed to do it in only the two days Brienne was gone was a wonder.

“It’s lovely to be free of the daily drudge of life at home,” her cousin said. “I sewed all day.”

That night at supper, Brienne contemplated her cousin. Perhaps the woman didn’t want to learn about the quarries, learn how to rule, because she was an artisan who longed for more time to hone her craft. Perhaps Brienne had been too quick to judge, to assume she knew the woman’s thoughts and feelings and motives.

The cousin and her daughters left a fortnight later. Brienne saw them off from the small port town and returned to Evenfall to find a raven from the Citadel. Summer had arrived.

Shipbreaker Bay responded with a tempest. From atop the parapets of the old keep, she watched the dark clouds, the rain, the chop on the water. It was beautiful and terrible, and it inspired only one thought in her: _Jaime could be here with me._ It was a strange thing to think; melancholy but warm, full of hope and sorrow.

She began to carry the thought with her, day after day. For a fortnight. A turn of the moon. Another.

He could be there. With her. She had only to offer. To ask.

No raven came from Tyrion. Jaime had not gone to Cersei yet. And the thought remained, louder than the questions, louder than the fear.

_Jaime could be here with me._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jaime knew the day would be interminable. Tyrion’s council chamber was hot and stagnant, the breeze refused to blow through despite every window being thrown wide open.

One of the stewards read through the account books line by tedious line. The maester occasionally chimed in, and some cousin or lord would add useless details every hour or so. He knew it all already, had known since he arrived back to the Rock three months before. He envied Tyrion, who looked to be asleep with his eyes open. _A neat trick,_ he thought, _I’ll have him teach me._

The first sound of the horn was almost amusing. What arrival could be worth the bother of a horn? But then came the second. The third. Jaime was on his feet and out the door before he heard the shouts.

“Dragon!”

Drogon couldn’t fly. That left only Jon.

_Or—_

He found her in the yard, unbuckling the dragon’s saddle as it whined.

“All right,” she snapped when the thing hissed at her as she pulled the saddle free and let it slump to the ground.

She bent to retrieve something from the giant saddlebag as he approached.

Her hair was longer, well past her chin—windblown and blonder than he’d ever seen it, sunbleached and almost white. _Seven hells, she is part Targaryen._ She wore a thin blue linen tunic, sleeves rolled to her elbows. The sun had put color in her cheeks, freckles too.

Oathkeeper hung low around her waist.

“Welcome to Casterly Rock,” he said.

“Oh.” She startled and glanced at him over her shoulder. Then she rose.

She looked perfect.

He knew he was smiling. He didn’t know why. It could be she brought terrible news. Sansa could be dead. The king. There could be a new invasion.

She swiped her wrist across her forehead and didn’t quite look him in the eye. “It’s scorching today.”

His smile grew. She didn’t have bad news.

“Oh, it’s Brienne.” Rohanne walked right past him.

“Yes, it is,” Jaime said.

“Your dragon is pretty,” Rohanne said as she approached it. The dragon huffed at her and looked away. “He looks like gold. What’s his name?”

“Ah, I—” Brienne finally looked at Jaime, as if she wanted him to answer for her. “I haven’t named him.”

“Do you have a dead brother?” Rohanne asked. “I call my pony Joffrey.”

Brienne sputtered. Jaime could only shrug and shake his head.

“Oh. No. I’m an only child.” Brienne fumbled with the leather thing she held in her hand. She turned to the dragon and swept her arm toward the Sunset Sea. “Go fish,” she told it. “Find somewhere to bed down.”

The dragon squawked at her but shot into the air. Rohanne ran for the curtain wall, shouting that she wanted to see him fly. The yard began to stir to life again as everyone who’d hidden from the dragon emerged.

Jaime took a few steps closer to Brienne. She had her chin tucked, but she glanced up at him. A pace away from her, he could see the satchel in her hand. He recognized it.

It bore Tyrion’s seal.

His mouth went dry. He looked hard at her, but she couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Have you come here to give me that satchel?”

Her mouth moved, but she pulled back the words she was going to say. She finally stammered out a weak, “I...”

“Have they found a way to force you?”

She jerked her head no, gaze intent on the ground.

There was one thing he’d half hoped. “Are you with child?”

That got her to look up. Her nostrils flared. _“No.”_

“Would you like to be?”

She gasped and glanced off to the side, but she licked her lips. His cock strained painfully against his laces.

“Brienne. Did you come here to carry me back to your castle?”

Her blue eyes flew up to meet his gaze, fierce. Resolved.

He grinned. “Gods, you _did.”_

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Her face scrunched in confusion. “What?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m saying: _yes.”_

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

“Fine.” He gestured to the satchel. “Have you signed everything?”

She nodded.

“Fetch that sniveling septon,” Jaime called toward his squires who were cowering near the stables. “Tell him there’s to be a wedding before the sun goes down.”

“What _today?”_ Brienne asked, aghast. She gestured at herself. “I’ve been in the saddle for two days. I reek of dragon.”

Jaime looked at the remaining squires. “And have a bath drawn for the Evenstar.”

“He’s in the water!” Rohanne screamed from atop the walls. “He has a big fish!”

Jaime swallowed and nodded toward Rohanne. “She stays with me.”

Brienne furrowed her brow. “Of course. She will always be welcome. Anytime she wishes.”

“Always. She stays with me always.”

“Her mother—”

“She had the other three. This one’s mine.”

“She’s never to see her mother?” Her eyes were hard, and she watched him close.

“In a few years, perhaps,” he said. “Never alone. Never more than a few hours.”

Brienne’s jaw got tight. “If you stole a child from me, I’d hunt you down and kill you. Slowly.”

His blood ran hot. He looked up at her. “If you ever think to put a child of mine in the hands of a child-burning death cult, I’ll take my chances.”

She dropped her head to the side. “Oh.”

“If you don’t want her, then I—”

“Jaime.” Brienne glared at him. “She’s welcome. Always. I didn’t mean that she wasn’t.”

“Good,” he said. The tension in his shoulders eased.

“I know nothing about children,” she said, voice low.

He laughed. “She won’t care.”

She looked up at him again, adjusted her grip on the satchel in her hand. “Today?”

“I’m not about to force you, but I’m not fool enough to give you time to change your mind either.”

“If I was going to change my mind, I would have turned back.”

“How many times _did_ you think of turning back?” he asked.

“Dozens.”

“How fast would you run me through if I kissed you right now?”

She looked around at the bustling castleyard. “Faster than you could blink.”

 _Gods,_ he’d missed her voice. Missed the sound of it, missed what it did to him.

He stepped closer. “Maybe I’ll join you in your bath.”

She rolled her eyes, but she looked at him in that way of hers, the one that made him want to pull her into a darkened room. He grinned again. His squire came to escort her to her bath, and he laughed when she looked back over her shoulder at him as she went.

He barked orders to his squires as he left the yard. “Have the linens in my bedchamber changed. Draw me a bath. Fetch Lord Tyrion.”

An hour later, Tyrion chortled as he followed him through the corridors to the sept.

“I had a hand in this, you know,” Tyrion said.

Jaime scoffed. “No one has as much hand invested in it as I do.”

Tyrion laughed again. “I suppose you’re right.”

Brienne stood outside the sept, her hair still half wet, drying in ropes along her face. She wore a white tunic with her coat of arms embroidered at the center of her chest over grey breeches. Oathkeeper was still at her hip.

He grinned. She was going to marry him wearing the sword. It was so Brienne of her; it made his heart give a little jolt.

Tyrion greeted her with enthusiasm. Rohanne mumbled about hating weddings and liking trees as Tyrion pulled her into the sept. When they were alone, Jaime turned to Brienne.

She looked serious, reserved. He wanted to touch her.

“Are you going to regret this?” he asked.

Her eyes turned sad, her mouth pulled. “I don’t know.”

That was like a bucket of icy water thrown in his face. He swallowed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She blinked slow, eyes grave. “I know.”

He couldn’t restore her faith in him. He knew that. The past would always lie between them. Dormant at times, he hoped, but there. For the rest of their lives, she would live with the hurt, the worry, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He had to live with that. Live with being the one who hurt her most.

“Is this worth it?” he asked her. His voice was small.

 _I’m not,_ he meant to say. _I’m not worth it._

She surprised him. Touched him. Here, outside the sept where anyone could see. Her hands came to his face, and they were cool in the afternoon heat.

“I think so,” she said. Her thumbs swept his cheeks. “You’re worth the risk. I’ve made my choice.”

He looked at the ground. There was a lump in his throat, and he nodded while he waited for it to clear so he could speak again. She was so close, he rested his forehead briefly on her temple and breathed her in, the scent of Brienne: soap and salt-spray and starlight.

He was never going to leave her, but she didn’t know that—wouldn’t know it until he drew his last breath.

“And I’ve made mine.” He pulled her close. “I’ve never had a wife before.”

“You still don’t.”

“Easily remedied.” He grasped her hand and pulled her into the sept.

The sept was filled with cousins and the few bannermen who had attended Tyrion’s visit to the Rock. Jaime saw their faces at the sight of his bride. Wearing breeches and carrying a sword, even on her wedding day. He couldn’t stop smiling.

The septon rarely saw Jaime or Tyrion, so he took his chance and read several key passages from The Seven-Pointed Star about duty to the Faith and reverence for the gods.

After a few passages, Rohanne groaned behind them. “Is he going to read that whole book?”

Jaime barked out a laugh; the septon and Brienne glared until he stopped.

The old Lannister bridal cloak was long, the train trailed along the floor even behind Brienne. It wasn’t easy to put it on her one-handed, but he managed to do it deftly, as though he’d done it a thousand times.

She was somber when their hands were bound together, and her voice rang out clear and bright with their vows. And when the time came, she kissed him, sweet and slow, before the gods and his family and the eyes of any who cared to look. Jaime had a wife when they left the sept.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Brienne had only been married an hour or two before she wanted to go to the walls of Casterly Rock and whistle for her dragon to whisk her home again.

With Jaime, of course.

And Rohanne.

She sat next to Jaime in Casterly Rock’s throne room. The high table was laden with foods she couldn’t believe the cooks had managed in only a few hours. Tyrion sat on her left and kept apologizing for the mediocre fare as more and more dishes were placed before her. Jaime grinned each time something new was placed before her.

He hadn’t stopped grinning.

“In three or four days, we can ride into Lannisport,” Tyrion was saying, “so you can see—”

“No.” She shook her head. “We should leave tomorrow. Perhaps we could wait until the day after.”

Jaime snickered and grasped her hand again. He’d hardly let it go since the sept. He brought it to his mouth and rested his lips on her knuckles the way she remembered he liked to do in bed when he was trying to tell her—

She glared at him. He grinned at her and licked his lips, then pulled her hand closer until she felt his tongue on her skin.

“Oh,” Tyrion said. He looked disappointed. A little sad. “I see.”

She was taking Tyrion’s family away, she knew, but he spent most of the year in King’s Landing anyway.

“You’re welcome to visit us anytime, of course,” she told her new good-brother.

Tyrion gave her a small smile.

“Very generous of you to extend such kindness to my brother, ser lady wife,” Jaime said into her the back of her hand.

She turned to glare at him again, but his eyes were so playful, she found herself leaning her head against the back of her chair and simply staring at him. He’d grown his beard and it was full of grey, but his hair had lightened a bit in the summer sun. His doublet was luxurious red silk embroidered with gold Lannister lions. She’d never seen him in anything so formal and knew her own clothing must look ridiculous beside his.

The Lannister cousins and lords of the westerlands who’d gathered in the sept and now the throne room seemed to think so. They were too polite to truly show their disdain, but she saw it just the same. If they’d ever imagined Jaime with a bride, it clearly hadn’t been someone like her.

For a moment, she wondered what her father would have thought of this. Of his daughter, in Casterly Rock, marrying the Kingslayer. Given some of the questions he’d asked her, she suspected he’d heard the rumors about her and Jaime before he died, though he’d been too kind to say. She doubted he would have been very proud of her now, but if she could tell him how happy she was, she thought he would be glad.

And she _was_ happy. Afraid. But happy.

A servant set another dish before her, crabs and lemons this time. She’d just started to reach for it to take a polite bite when Rohanne appeared from under the table between her and Jaime. She looked at Brienne.

“The dragon got another big fish,” she said. “I’m going to give him lemon cakes.”

“No,” Jaime said, voice stern. “No lemon cakes. You don’t feed dragons.”

“But—”

“Why don’t you think about what you want to wear when we ride the dragon to Tarth?” Jaime asked her.

Rohanne’s brow furrowed, but she nodded, then scampered off.

Jaime grimaced and looked over at Brienne. “How are we going to keep her away from the dragon?”

Brienne shrugged. “You don’t know how to keep her away?”

He coughed out a laugh. “No.”

“Can’t you just tell her—”

“I can tell her,” Jaime scoffed, “but that’s not going to work. And I can’t chain her up in a cage.”

Brienne remembered the way Rohanne had hugged Robb’s tooth.

“That’s terrifying,” Brienne said.

Jaime and Tyrion both laughed.

“How can you laugh?” she asked.

“It’s always this way,” Tyrion said. “She’s clever.”

“Clever and constantly terrifying,” Jaime said.

Brienne turned to Jaime. “But. You know how to stop her. You know what you’re doing. You know how to— _You’re her father—_ don’t you know what you’re _doing?”_

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Jaime laughed. “You think I know what I’m doing? You think _your_ father knew what he was doing? Probably not.”

“Gods,” she whispered. She sat back hard in her chair. Had her father not known what he was doing? Had he tried to make her a proper lady and then given up because he hadn’t known what he was doing? She’d never thought of it that way. _“Gods._ That’s why you said she wouldn’t care if I knew about children?”

Jaime smiled and nodded. His eyes were soft, open. She tried to imagine the Jaime of old admitting he didn’t know what he was doing and she couldn’t. For some reason, it struck her as the most endearing thing she’d ever seen or heard. She took her hand back and smoothed her palm along his bearded cheek, speared her fingers into his hair; she was aware everyone in the room could see but didn’t really care. He was her husband, wasn’t he? She had the right, didn’t she?

He turned into her touch and studied her with so much hope in his eyes that her own stung with tears. _Gods, what is this?_

“I love you,” she whispered, almost unable to bear the weight of it.

He inhaled hard, a ragged sound.

Rohanne popped out from under the table again and stood between them, staring at Brienne.

Brienne retrieved her hand from Jaime’s face and looked at the girl.

“We’re weddinged now?” Rohanne asked her.

“Married,” Jaime whispered.

“Married,” Rohanne repeated. She pointed at Jaime. “This is my father.”

Brienne glanced at Jaime, then looked back at Rohane. “Yes...”

Rohanne’s nose wrinkled. “Are you my mother, then?”

Tyrion made a strangled sound.

Brienne froze. “Uh. No. You have a mother, child.”

“Oh.” Rohanne nodded, but her brows fell.

_Have I blundered already?_

Brienne cleared her throat. “But. I could be your liege.”

Rohanne tilted her head to the side. “Like fealty? Like a knight?”

Brienne nodded.

“Fetch your sword, Ro,” Tyrion said.

Jaime grabbed the little wooden sword from Rohanne’s chair beside him and gave it to his daughter.

Brienne stood and took a step away from the table.

Tyrion and Jaime stood as well.

“Go down on one knee,” Tyrion told Rohanne, “remove your sword from its scabbard and present it to the Evenstar.”

Rohanne did so and looked over her shoulder at her uncle for more instructions.

Tyrion said, “Then say, ‘I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my—’” Tyrion paused when Brienne shook her head sharply. She didn’t want the child to swear to die for her. He smothered a chuckle and went on, “‘and follow all instructions about dragons.’”

Rohanne very solemnly said, “I will shield your back and keep counsel and follow all dragons.”

Tyrion continued, “‘I swear it by the old gods and the new.’”

“I swear it by the old gods and the new.” Rohanne grinned up at Brienne.

“And I vow—” Brienne paused and collected herself. “You shall always have a place in my home and meat and mead at my table. And I will ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise.”

Rohanne popped to her feet, snapped her sword back in its scabbard, then strapped it around her waist. “Lemon cakes now?”

They all nodded, and she laughed and ran back to the table.

Tyrion grabbed Brienne’s hand and kissed the back of it very hard, then patted it several times. His voice was gruff. “That was well done, sister. Very well done.”

She watched Tyrion return to the table, then she looked at Jaime. He swallowed and searched her face, then gestured her back toward the table, held her chair, and sat beside her. He claimed her hand once more, pressing the back of it to his lips, his cheek, his temple. When he looked at her, he swallowed again, and she realized he couldn’t speak. He nodded at her, his lips on her knuckles.

After a moment or two, he collected himself and smiled. “Want to go make another one?”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That night, after Tyrion’s impromptu bridal feast, the toasts, the laughter, Jaime and his bride snuck away to his bedchamber.

“Before they think to try a bedding ceremony,” she said, fingers tight on Oathkeeper’s hilt as he led her down the corridor.

He looked back at her and grinned. “I think they like being alive too much to try, but if it gets you into bed faster...”

He thought she smothered a laugh.

The servants had cleared his apartments and left only a few sconces and candles lit.

Brienne made a choked sound as he pulled her toward the bedchamber. She looked around at the tapestries, the murals, the gilding. “These are _your_ apartments? What are the lord’s apartments like?”

Jaime stopped to look at her as she eyed the world he’d always known. She gripped Oathkeeper’s hilt tight as if she may need to fight something lurking in the shadows. A lock of her hair fell forward into her eyes as she gazed around; he stepped forward to tuck it back behind her ear. Her sigh was wary as she took him in, her blue eyes large and uncertain. He brushed her lips with his thumb.

“These are the lord’s apartments,” he said. “Tyrion didn’t want my father’s rooms. He made me take them after we returned from Lys. I think he was afraid—” _Fool._

He took her hand and pulled her into his bedchamber, disentangling their fingers as he bolted the door. Brienne looked around the room, stared for a moment at the bed, and then at him.

“Tyrion was afraid Cersei would take them,” she finished for him.

Jaime shrugged, swallowed hard. Married only a few hours and already—

“We can’t pretend she doesn’t exist,” Brienne said. “It would be silly to try, especially here.”

She went to the dressing table against the wall and unstrapped her swordbelt a bit too slowly.

“True,” he said. He tried to keep his tone light.

The look she gave him was warm, but her eyes were a little careworn, and he felt a lead weight lodge in his gut.

“Brienne, every night I’ve slept in this bed, I’ve been alone.”

She blinked at him while she removed her boots. “Since Lys. I know. You said.”

“So this will be your bed tonight,” he said. “Yours and mine.”

That seemed to make her more uncertain. She nodded briefly but turned her back as she removed the bridal cloak and draped it over a dressing table. Her fingers lingered over the embroidered crests on the fabric.

 _Regret,_ he thought, _already she regrets this._ Earlier she had held his face, said she loved him, but this was what that love brought her. Pain.

Hurt.

She bent to unlace her boots, and he watched how efficiently she did it, no wasted motion. He pulled off his tunic and sat on the side of the bed.

“Brienne,” he said. When she looked up, he held his right hand out toward her. “Please?”

During their nights in Winterfell, he had asked her to remove his golden hand for him more than once. He could do it, but she was faster. And it meant she would touch him. He wanted her to touch him.

She walked toward him barefoot, her fingertips reaching deftly for his arm as though she’d forgotten she was four years out of practice, and this was a new hand. He slid his left hand around her knee, desperate to have her breeches off so he could feel the endless planes of her leg beneath his palm.

As she plucked at the laces of his hand, she glanced down at him. “Who had this made for you?”

He looked at the dancing grey Valyrian steel. “Tyrion. It’s made from some old dagger of Joff’s they found in the Red Keep.”

And now he’d mentioned Joffrey. _Fool._ She must have seen something in his face.

“Jaime, we can’t pretend—”

“You only say that because you can’t see your face every time I mention—”

“I don’t mean—”

“Brienne—”

She finished with the laces and placed his false hand on the bedside table.

“Your children existed, Jaime. _She_ exists. They’re your family, and you can’t just never mention them for the rest of your life.”

She still stood before him, so he sighed and rested his forehead against her waist. Her fingers threaded into his hair, and he wanted to do anything but keep talking.

“Do you feel unfaithful still?” she asked. “You said that while you were in Winterfell, with me, you felt...”

Jaime buried his face in her tunic, wrapped his arms tight around her middle.

“No. I don’t feel unfaithful here in my bedchamber with _my wife.”_

“You looked like this sometimes in Winterfell, and I ignored it, but—”

He groaned. “You have every right to doubt me, but I am done with her. I will not trade myself for her. _Ever._ I am in your arms, which is where I want to be, and if I had a look on my face, it was a look of fear that you would feel like this again. That I would hurt you.”

Her hands were still in his hair. He looked up at her.

She smoothed her thumb across his brow. “I just want you to tell me. I can see your dark thoughts on your face. It will be worse if I have to guess what you’re feeling—”

He nodded. That was undoubtedly true. When she guessed what he felt, she thought the utter worst.

“I feel like I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t want her to intrude on my wedding night with my _wife._ But because I’m the stupidest—”

“You’re not,” she said.

He let out a dry laugh. “All right, I told you what I feel. What do you feel, ser lady wife?”

She went rigid in his arms. Her eyes were wide. _Oh,_ he thought, _she can’t lie._

“You don’t have to answer,” he said.

She licked her lips. “I am afraid you wish you were with her. That you wish had been able to marry her. That she was here with you now.”

He released her, unwound his arms from around her. Would she wonder this every time they were together? Would he spend their lives hurting her over and over and over?

“I’m done with her.”

Brienne swallowed a loud labored sound. “I understand.”

She didn’t understand, she never did. Even now, she only said it because she didn’t want to contradict him, but couldn’t lie and say she believed him.

The silence between them grew long, and he scooted further back onto the bed, shedding his boots as he went.

“You said something,” he said, “half of something, that night in the bathhouse at Harrenhal.”

She stood at the edge of the bed still, watching him, her palms awkwardly pressed to the sides of her thighs.

“Which time at Harrenhal?” she asked, her voice brittle.

Air huffed out his nose in pathetic amusement. “The most recent time,” he said. “The only time in our lives you’ve ever talked more than me. You said I looked at you like no one else did, you said something about how you feel every time you enter a room and see me.”

“I said so many things,” she said. An evasion.

“When you said it,” he said, “I understood. It’s the same for me. When I look around a room, and I find you there, it’s... This thing between us, when we look at one another—I didn’t know it was the same for you until you said it.”

She watched him, brow furrowed in confusion. “Surely you— With... You must have felt it with—”

“No,” he said. “Not like that. I felt things when I looked at her. We’re twins, we can talk with only a look, but not that. When you look at me, it’s like you see something inside me that no one else does. You and I look at one another and there’s _...something..._ in the air between us.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She was staring at the sheets and not at him.

“I know what it is now,” he said. He lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling as he ran his hand through his hair.

She surprised him and crawled over him, straddled him, dropped her hands on either side of his head, and bent down over him, her eyes almost angry. “What is it?”

He cupped her cheek. “It’s like our vows. I am hers, and she is mine. It’s both of us, feeling...“

She dropped her forehead against his and whispered against his lips, “Yes.”

“I love her as she loves me,” he whispered, his lips brushing hers as their breaths mingled hot.

She kissed him then. She could be rigid as steel, his lady knight, but oh, her lips were soft. He wrapped his arms around her, slid his hand under her tunic and up the long, smooth expanse of her back, pulled her down as he slid his tongue inside her mouth. She melted into him, and he groaned as she pressed him into the bed, as she ground the heat of her cunt against his cock through their breeches.

She pulled back, then, her brow still pressed to his, her hand holding his face. “You think you love me?”

“Gods help you,” he said. He pushed her hair back from her face. “I _know_ I love you.”

Her fingers tore at the laces of his breeches. “I want you.”

He almost smiled. There was no subtlety with her, no subterfuge. Brienne never touched him for any reason except that she wanted to, that she wanted him. He pulled at the laces of her breeches, but she had his open and—

_Oh._

Her fingers slid along the length of his cock, down then up, her thumb swirling over the head of it as it swelled in her hand. Then she slid her hand down and lightly cupped his balls, and his back arched off the bed.

She made a little gloating sound in her throat.

This was Brienne in bed. Even from their first night together in Winterfell. She watched, she tested, she listened—like she would with a sparring partner. She learned all his weaknesses and then used them against him.

It was the greatest thing he’d ever known.

Jaime loosened her breeches enough to slide his hand inside, her hair rough against his palm as he struggled to run his finger along the lips of her cunt. She was so wet, but his hand could barely move within her breeches. He gripped her with his right arm and turned them, so they were on their sides, their hands making one another gasp. He had room to maneuver now, and she writhed against his fingers.

He was thrusting into her hand but made himself stop as he pulled her closer and put his lips to her ear. “I want to be inside you.”

She began to rip at his breeches. “Yes.”

He tried to pull hers off. Cool air hit his chest as she rolled away to undress, rising to her knees to pull off her tunic, then lying back to throw her legs in the air to kick off her breeches. Her movements were lurching and desperate, her small breasts jarring with each shift and tug, and she was more enticing than she would ever know as she revealed the long pale length of her legs.

He rolled over to slide his hand over her bare hip. He kissed her knee, her thigh, ran his palm down the stretch of her calf.

“Jaime,” she whispered. He loved the sound of his name in her voice.

“Yes,” he whispered back as he bared his teeth on her inner thigh. The scent of her arousal beckoned him. He kissed along her dripping seam as she tangled her fingers in his hair like she always did.

“I want you to...”

“Fuck you?” He grinned.

_“Yes.”_

He moved over her. She spread her thighs as she reached for him, one hand bringing his cock to her entrance, the other sliding along his cheek.

She canted her hips upward. The heat of her cunt closed around the head of his cock, and he dug into the mattress with his knees as he thrust inside her.

“Seven hells,” he groaned. There was nothing like being inside her.

“Jaime,” she gasped. Her arms gripped him tight. She stared up at him as he moved within her, blue eyes full and bright.

“You glow like this,” he whispered in her ear. “You glow, Brienne. You glow.”

The next night, she was asleep in bed behind him as he stood at his balcony, watching the moonlight dance on the water. Overhead, the stars winked in the summer sky. They would leave for Tarth in the morning. He didn’t know when he would be back. If.

He heard her behind him before her arms slid around his waist. She wore a robe, but the middle of it was open because he felt nothing but her skin pressed against his back. He moaned low in his chest. Her chin rested on his shoulder.

“Saying goodbye?” she whispered.

He pulled her arms close. Twined his fingers with hers.

“I never really miss it when I’m gone,” he said. “The Rock’s best like this. At night, in the dark, with the surf pounding below and the stars bright above.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said. She trailed her fingers over his ribs. “Do you always stand naked on balconies like a madman? Should I prepare the servants?”

“Only during the summer.” He smiled. “Don’t like the cold.”

“Is that what it is?” she mused. “Summer Jaime? I’ve never seen you smile so much, I thought perhaps you were happier here. But, of course, it’s the heat.”

“The smiles are yours.” He grinned and pulled the back of her hand to his lips. “When you’re not being a pain in my arse.”

She pressed herself against his arse. “Like this?”

“Oh, I much prefer it like that.” He looked at her and grinned. “I stand naked on balconies in summer, and you grow your hair.”

She huffed. “I don’t grow it. It grows on its own. I cut it when it’s a hindrance.”

“Summer Brienne has Targaryen hair,” he said.

Her lips were on his neck; he felt her smile. “I don’t have Targaryen hair.”

“Trust me on this, I knew plenty of Targaryens.”

She shook her head, hugged him tight. “You said I had Lannister hair once.”

“I was wrong.”

“Mmmm.” She nuzzled her nose along the skin behind his ear. “Jaime Lannister admits he was wrong.”

“It has happened before,” he drawled.

“Rarely.”

He kissed her hand again. “Tell me, did you wed me yesterday, or did I dream it?”

“I did,” she said.

“Regrets?”

“Not yet.”

He sighed. “Tyrion says he will visit next year.”

“I’m glad.”

“As am I. Ro will miss him.” He knew she would miss the Rock too, though she’d been too excited about riding the dragon to Tarth to worry much about what she would leave behind.

“You’ll miss him,” Brienne said.

“But, I won’t have to miss you anymore.”

Her lashes fluttered against his shoulder. “Come back to bed.”

“Convince me,” he whispered.

Her fingers brushed down his abdomen. Slow. Deliberate. Her lips latched onto the skin at the base of his neck, and she sucked it against her teeth.

“Convinced,” he whispered. “I’m convinced.”

When he whirled to kiss her, she slipped away, ducked her head, and backed toward the bed. Beneath her dark robe, she was luminous, her big blue eyes alluring in a way he doubted she’d believe if he tried to tell her.

“How can you do _that_ and then get shy?”

“Not out on the balcony,” she said. She dropped her robe, then lay back on the sheets. Her arms held out to him. “Anyone could see.”

He laughed as he crawled over her. “Let them.”

“No.” She smiled and pulled him down into a kiss.

When he broke the kiss, he smoothed her white-blonde hair off her face. She gave him a small, knowing smile.

“Summer Brienne smiles more too,” he said.

She bit her lip and smoothed her thumbs over his brow. “The smiles are yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THE END**  
>  (Epilogue to follow.)


End file.
